SEABURY QUINN

CLARK ASHTON SMITH

ALEXANDRE DUMAS .
BASSETT MOROAH *
J PAUL SUTER
 The
Dragoman's
Jest
By
OTIS ADELBERT KLINE
and
E. HOFFMANN PRICE

T WO of the most popular writers of oriental stories have joined forces to

produce a thrilling and never-to-be-forgotten tale of vivid action and des¬
perate adventure in the Arabian desert.

T HE jest that Hamed the Dragoman had prepared for the entertainment of
Carter, the American tourist, turned into grim tragedy, that led from Silat’s
coffee shop in Jerusalem across the desert into the slave mart of al Madinat. This
is a story of a beautiful woman’s escapade, desert warfare, and the fierce bandit
known as ibn Sakr, the Hawk—-a story that will grip you and carry you along
in its breath-taking sweep to its surprizing climax. This fascinating novelette is
printed complete in the current issue of—

Entertainment of a quality not found outside

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

Now on Sale
If your magazine dealer is sold out mail 25c to the Publishers at 840 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill.
 LEARN RADIO TELEVISION
TALKING PICTURES-LOS ANGELES
Come to sunny California where many of the famous Radio Stars
make their home—where the great American Television Labora¬
tories are located—and hundreds of trained Sound Engineers
and Mechanics are employed in the Talking Picture Studios,
Broadcasting Stations and Theatres of Hollywood.

Railroad Fare Allowed to California

Don’t worry about the expense of the trip! For a lim¬ opportunities for the trained man. And you ean pre¬
ited time we are allowing railroad fare to Los Angeles pare for them in 4 months at National!
from any point in the United States. This is deducted
from your tuition, so the trip costs you nothing extra. FREE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE
Take advantage of this opportunity to visit L03 An¬ Spare Time Jobs While at School
geles and Hollywood, and prepare for a good job at When you’ve finished National Training—four months
the same time. Mail coupon for full details! of practical Shop Work is the great National Tele¬
vision, Talking Pioture and Radio Shops, —then
PRACTICAL SHOP TRAINING National’s Employment Department will assist you in
At the Oldest Trade School in the West every possible way to get the job you want. And if
For over 25 years National has been training men by you’re short of money, National will gladly help you
the practical shop method. Over 20,000 ambitious men to get a spare time job to pay your living expenses
from all over America have come to National for their while at school.
training. You’ll find National graduates working in
the famous Studios of Hollywood, in Talking Picture MAIL COUPON FOR BIG FREE BOOK
Theatres, great Broadcastihg Stations, for Radio Man- Get all the facts! Mail coupon below for our Big Free
ufacturers and Dealers, while many have gone into the Book, telling all about National’s famous Shop Train¬
Radio business for themselves and are making big ing and the many jobs opening up in these fascinating
money as their own boss. What they have done, you fields. No cost or obligation! Just mail the coupon.
can do! Mail coupon for Big Free Book of Proof!
MANY JOBS OPEN 1 National Television, Talking Picture
10,000,000 Radio sets to be constantly serviced! 600 | and Radio School,
Broadcasting Stations employing trained Operators J Dept. 340-E, 4006 So. Figueroa St.,
and Mechanics! 10,000 Theatres equipped for sound I Los Angeles. California.
and the job only half done! Eight stations already I Please send me your big new Free Book on
sending out regular Television programs! New jobs I Television, Talking Pictures and Radio, and full
Trill be opening up every day—hundreds of golden I details of your Free Railroad Fare offer.

NATIONAL TELEVISION, TALKING Name....

PICTURE and RADIO SCHOOL
Dept. 340-E,
(M6 $0. FIGUEROA ST., LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
 Contents for March, 1932
Cover Design_C. C. Senf
Illustrating a scene in "The Vengeance of Ixmal"

The Eyrie- 148

A chat with the readers

The Vengeance of Ixmal_Kirk Mashburn 296

An eery story of a vampire-haunted village, and quivering human sacrifices
on an Aztec altar

The House of the Living Dead_Harold Ward 310

A shuddery tale—a story of revived corpses taken from the grave to live and
love again

The Man Who Played With Time_A. W. Bernal 330

A strange weird-scientific tale of the fourth dimension and a tragic journey
■into the past

290
 [continued from preceding page]

The Last Day-Robert E. Howard 345

Verse

The Answer of the Dead-J. Paul Suter 346

The protecting arms of a dead man reached hack from the grave to shield the
woman he loved

Island of Doom-Bassett Morgan 354

A thrill-tale of brain transplantation, a surgical horror that was consummated
on a little island in the South Pacific

The Planet of the Dead-Clark Ashton Smith 364

A unique story of star-gazing—a bizarre tale of life in two planets and the
splendors of a far world

Death-Wilfred Blanch Talman 372

Verse

The Devil’s Bride (Part 2)-Seabury Quinn 373

A novel of devil-worship, that contains horror, thrills, shudders, breath-taking
interest, suspense, and vivid action

Flight-James W. Bennett and Soong Kwen-Ling 397

A brief Chinese story of a strange occult adventure—a tale which summarizes
the Taoist conception of life after death

The Milk Carts-Violet A. Methley 401

The story of a horror on the golf links—an elemental being out of the dim
distant past

The Thing in the Cellar-David H. Keller 405

A strange and blood-freezing evil awaited the boy as he went to his doom in
that dark room

Laughter in the Night __ August W. Derleth and Mark Schorer 409

A hideous burst of laughter from the moor where the gallows-tree once stood
portended tragedy

Weird Story Reprint:

The Wolf-Leader (Conclusion)_Alexandre Dumas 417
A werewolf story by a great French novelist, which does not appear in his
collected works in English

For Advertising Rates in WEIRD TALES Apply Direct to

Western Advertising Office:
NORMAN C. NOTTRSB
1031 8. R roadway
Los Angeles, OaBf.
WEIRD TALES
Central Advertising Office: Eastern Advertising Ofl
HARLEY L, WARD, INC. D. P. RIKKR, Mgr.
360 N. Michigan Ave. 303 Fourth Ave.
Chicago, Dl. New Yortt, N. Y.
Phone, Central 6269 Phone, Gratnercy 630

291
T HE true function of a magazine like Weird Tales is expressed in a letter
that comes to the Eyrie from C. H. Osborn, of Fulton, New York: It pro¬
vides escape from the humdrum realities of everyday life. Mr. Osborn writes:
"The bored indifferent worker is hurrying home from another day’s quota of labor,
and stops in at the corner drug-store to purchase his after-dinner cigar, and is glanc¬
ing over the latest issues in the magazine rack when his eye comes to rest on a copy
of a magazine with an unusual sort of cover. Idly he picks it up and glances through
its contents. His curiosity aroused, he buys it and takes it home. After dinner he
settles down in a comfortable chair, lights his perfecto, and while the missus is do¬
ing up the dinner dishes, becomes so engrossed in the magazine that he reads it
from cover to cover. Next day he sends a check for a two years’ subscription to
Weird Tales. Meanwhile his wife has been wondering how John, who isn’t much
of a reader, came to be so interested in that magazine last night; she picks it up, and
after an involuntary shudder at its title, conquers her apprehensions sufficiently to
read a story by Seabury Quinn. Total results—two confirmed Weird Tales fans
who have found the magic road to escape from monotony. And so it goes in many
homes throughout the country. The stranger the tale the more fascinating. Stories
which deal with unknown or forgotten things; stories which carry us out into the
uttermost voids of space where even the imagination of man has failed to penetrate,
past hurtling galaxies, glorious universes with strange laws, and stranger gods, into
breath-taking adventures among fearful inhabitants of eldritch worlds, are extremely
absorbing. Stories of strange races who lived and fought with gargantuan monsters,
behemoths apd elementals and worshipped forgotten gods, when the earth was young,
arouse some primordial instinct within us. Lovecraft is a master of this type of story;
so also is Howard. May I offer just a bit of advice without seeming too presumptuous?
Keep the element of mystery and wonder always foremost, for herein lies the weird
tale’s greatest charm. Keep the reader guessing right up to the end of the story, and
you will have won his gratitude and approbation, and keep the stories unique, weird
and original. Beyond that, one can ask no more.”
"I am only a lumberman,” writes Arthur Timpson, of Gleason, Wisconsin, "but
I think I know a good magazine when I see one. Weird Tales is not only unique
in its field but educational as well. Stories of the supernatural should interest every
one, for the realm of spirits has barely been touched. Back in 1911, in Esthonia, a
demon came to a farmhouse, stayed for three months, was ordered under arrest by
(Please turn to page 294)
292
ARE YOU AN ENSLAVED GOD?
Are You Blinded to the Truth ?

rtfi^
The Rosicrucians Invite You
£ unuauat,taawledge!eandabecome,Ma«te^,ofeyour

A New Free Book

f here is the way

Librarian F. E. V. I
ROSICRUCIAN BROTHERHOOD
294 WEIRD TALES

(Continued from page 292)

the authorities and generally held the neighborhood under a spell of terror. Invis¬
ible to all but one person, he set the entire country aflame with excitement. I my¬
self visited the place during this time. I saw the Tsarist police stand puzzled and
fearful, and I saw the peasants shiver.”
Mrs. Esther Pierce of Washington, Kansas, writes to the Eyrie: "I have read
Weird Tales for a long while and am very fond of them. I expect to reaU them
as long as I can scrape twenty-five pennies together. I love to read stories of witch¬
ery, tombs, graveyards, something that makes you feel creepy, something that makes
you wake up in the night and feel cold and wet. Give us more of Quinn’s stories.
He is the best writer you have, and H. P. Lovecraft comes next.”
From Aguadulce, Republic of Panama, comes a letter from William Weber:
"One of the officials of the company for which I work loaned me a copy of the No¬
vember issue of your magazine, and I was so impressed with the leading story, Placide’s
Wife, that I want to write in and tell you how I enjoyed it. I am a Louisianian my¬
self, and so I am able to appreciate the manner in which the dialect of the story is
handled. Managing a sugar plantation a hundred miles from nowhere is a lonesome
affair and about all I have in the way of recreation is reading. Your November is¬
sue was my introduction to Weird Tales, but I have made arrangements with the
news dealer here to forward it to me regularly. Best of luck to you, and please pub¬
lish more stories like Placide’s Wife.”
A letter from Paul O’Brian, of New York Gty, says: "It is with extreme plea¬
sure that I read that our good friend Jules de Grandin will be back with us again
next month. Just as a matter of form I’ll make it unanimous in saying that Seabury
Quinn is undoubtedly the best contributor to Weird Tales. Although Mr. Quinn
is my favorite writer, credit must go where credit is due, and the greatest, the weird¬
est story I ever read was Frank Belknap Long’s The Space-E ters. I’ve read that story
over and over and believe I can almost repeat it word for word from memory. Permit
me to make a few suggestions. While the new Jules de Grandin story is running, why
not have Mr. Senf (I believe that’s the name) put his conception of the little French¬
man on the outside cover of Weird Tales?” [Jules de Grandin’s face has appeared
in illustrations on the cover several times.—The Editors.]
",From the Dark Halls of Hell is a fine little tale and possesses much original¬
ity,” writes E. Irvine Haines of New York. "Those Who Seek is your best story
from a weird standpoint, and is well told. The Head particularly appealed to me,
as it not only touched upon a topic of considerable interest (I am the author of Was
Shakespeare the Author of His Plays?) but there is a graphic horror and description
in the way the story is treated that holds the interest and thrills at the same time.
Mr. Hurst is to be congratulated.”
Writes Rodna Seawert, of Grosse Pointe, Michigan: "Although I am a veteran
reader of Weird Tales this is the first time I have written to the Eyrie. I wonder
what would happen if we should lose our beloved Jules de Grandin. Somehow, Weird
Tales would not seem quite right without our Jules de Grandin and his inseparable
friend Doctor Trowbridge. There is something decidedly lacking when they fail to

(Please turn to page 414)

 AFFLING-
*MYSTERV
TORIES

GIVEN

THRILLING
FREE
detective Tf You Act Now!
ADVENTURES A' luwnUi>UW*
 An eery story of a vampire-haunted village, and living human
sacrifices on an Aztec altar

B EFORE the fury of the Spaniard

the might of proud Tapalapan
crumbled. Her fate was even
more direful than that of her sister cities
in the ravished valley of Anahauc; her
walls were broken and her people led
away into bondage. Desolation sat upon
her gates until they, too, crumbled and
oblivion followed destruction and decay.
296
Of the glory that was Tapalapan’s there
remained, in time, only the earth-cov¬
ered mounds of stone that were once her
palaces and temples.
The bitter years trickled through the
fingers of forgotten gods, until Tapala¬
pan became no more than a vague and
obscure name, even to the lowly dwellers
in the few mean villages that were her

legacy. To the simple villagers who knew
of them, the mounds and hillocks that
marked the site of the ancient city were
cursed with silence and with death; and
with the curse that fell upon Tascala,
who had been the daughter of a king in
old Tapalapan.
In the fullness of time, scholars athirst
for knowledge revived interest in the van¬
ished glory of Anahauc. Learned men
labored among the ruins of the valley;
'There upon the mound with
them, red-faced and fierce-eyed,
Ixmal stood, his face a livid
mask of passion.”
and eventually a great museum in the
North dispatched an expedition to un¬
earth what traces of Tapalapan the hand
of time and the vengeance of her con¬
querors had spared.
The directors of the northern museum
chose carefully those who should con¬
duct the expedition, although, it may be,
the pointing finger of fate guided their
choice in at least one instance. Three
men met the final tests of the directorate,
297
298 WEIRD TALES
and were dispatched upon the mission
for which they qualified.
Doctor Perry Whitaker, the archeolo¬
gist who had blazed the trail of explora¬
tion among the Mayan ruins of Yucatan
and Quintana Roo, was the nominal head
of the party. Greely, the photographer,
who was a veteran globe-trotter and ex¬
plorer incidentally to his passion for pic¬
tures of strange new scenes, came along
with his insatiable camera. The last of
the trio—he to whom the circling hand
of destiny had pointed—was Walter Pem-
brooke, ethnologist, traveler, scholarly ad¬
venturer. Because of his knowledge of the
customs and language of the people with
whom the party would come in contact,
and because the vigor of his thirty-odd
years weighed less heavily upon his shoul¬
ders than the nearly three score of Doc¬
tor Whitaker, Pembrooke’s was the tacit¬
ly accorded leadership in their venture.
The explorers, their equipment loaded
upon the backs of diminutive but sturdy
burros, and accompanied only by two
Mexicans who had been employed in the
railhead town of Celayos, marched more
than three full days’ journey across deso¬
late, broken country. In this manner they
arrived at the modern village of Santa
Rosalia—modern, that is, solely in the
chronological sense — which previously
had been selected as a base of operations,
due to its nearness to the ruins.
T he map of Mexico is not adorned
with the name of the village of Santa
Rosalia. The tiny pueblo boasted a church
that was its one building of any preten¬
sions, and about which clustered, hap¬
hazardly, a score or so of adobe hovels.
There was no inn, and the houses of the
villagers were shared with their beasts
and fowls. Choice, as much as necessity,
moved the Americans to pitch their tents
for shelter while they rested and com¬
pleted preparations for the work ahead.
Pembrooke set about recruiting a force
of laborers. Many of the shiftless lndios
of the village were willing to use a pick
and shovel in sporadic fashion, until the
prospective scene of their labor was di¬
vulged. With one accord, the men of
Santa Rosalia crossed themselves and re¬
fused to invade the ruins. Pressed for
explanation, their swarthy faces assumed
blank expressions; they shrugged their
shoulders, pursed their lips, and mut¬
tered vaguely of a curse upon the ruins.
More than that they would say nothing.
"There’s a ’curse’ that makes the ruins
taboo to these Indians,” Pembrooke an¬
grily informed Doctor Whitaker. "Here
we are, with only Juan and Pablo, the
two Mexicans we brought along from
Celayos, and not a worthless Indio in this
mud village can be bribed to wield a
shovel.”
Doctor Whitaker looked up, inquir¬
ingly.
“A curse?” he questioned. Pembrooke
nodded.
"That is as much as I can get from
them/’ He made a gesture of disgust, run¬
ning his fingers abstractedly through crisp,
dark hair that had the bare suggestion of
a wave. His wide-spaced eyes were like¬
wise dark; and with his straight, thin-
bridged nose and a skin tanned to swarth¬
iness by the sun, Pembrooke caused his
elderly companion to make whimsical
comparison to some young chieftain out
of the past of Anahauc, returned to find
no liking for this squalid hamlet of the
present valley.
"If there is a curse,” Pembrooke con¬
temptuously declared, "it’s the curse of
ultimate laziness on this pueblo—I don’t
blame Juan and Pablo for treating their
local countrymen with such lofty disdain!
Here, practically at the ruins, the source
of the labor I had counted on proves non¬
existent.”
He broke off to stare out over the
 THE VENGEANCE OF IXMAE
wasted broken plain to where, a scant
five or six miles distant, lay their objective
—the humbled remnants of the once
great city of the Aztec empire.
"It is too bad,” Doctor Whitaker
regretted, "that the village priest is ab¬
sent. It may be that we could enlist his
aid, and he would at least tell us what
is wrong.”
"It must be something special,” Pem-
brooke opined, "to make them so fearful
of the ruins that they won't even talk
about it. I’ll have to try and discover
just what their pet superstition is, and
then perhaps we can exorcise their devils
in some way.”
"Yes,” agreed the doctor, "the time
lost and the expense of importing labor¬
ers would be too great. Besides, if we
brought in Indians from another village,
they probably would only succumb to the
obsessions and fears of these natives.”
"The half-breed jefe politico has more
intelligence than the rest,” Pembrooke
speculated; "a little beating around the
conversational bush may induce him to
tell us what is the matter. He might even
be persuaded to help us out of our diffi¬
culty.”
A s pembrooke said, the village magis¬
trate was possessed of considerably
more character and intelligence than most
of the Santa Rosalians, but he was none
too high a type of citizen, at that. How¬
ever, the expedition’s stores included a
number of bottles of brandy and fiery
tequila, and the mayor saw no reason for
the unfriendly reception of a guest who
brought such gifts. The half of his blood
that was white responded warmly to the
flattering equality of Pembrooke’s man¬
ner. After all, he reflected, why not?
Was he not chief in Santa Rosalia, and a
really very superior person, as this new
friend so evidently perceived?
A few drinks of tequila, and it seemed
299
the most natural thing in the world for
the senor to address him, the mayor, as
Don Tomas. Again, why not?
Pembrooke casually led up to the real
object of his visit. An uneasy look ap¬
peared in the mayor’s eyes.
"Of course, Don Tomas, such things
appear childish to such men as we, but
it is very annoying, nevertheless.”
The jefe politico squirmed uneasily.
Pembrooke poured another drink, adding:
"They will not even say why it is they
fear so to disturb the ruins (which, after
all, are only mounds of earth and stone),
even in the light of day.”
The mayor had no wish to incur the
ridicule of this excellent gringo. Yet he
felt that courtesy such as he had been
shown deserved a timely warning of the
fearsome secret of the ruins. Well, the
best way was to tell what los Indios be¬
lieved—and he need not say that he, Don
Tomas Molero, believed with them!
Which proved the astuteness of his guest.
Yes, a thousand thanks: Don Tomas
would have another drink of the excellent
liquor. Much fortified, he took a deep
breath and told Pembrooke the legend
of the Princess Tascala, of the curse of
Prince Hautepec, and of the fearful be¬
ings that were the horror of Tapalapan’s
sprawled ruins.
Pembrooke heard him quietly to the
end. He well knew the necessity of sup¬
pressing any sign of scorn or amusement.
There was nothing, however, to prohibit
him pouring out another drink for "Don”
Tomas. . . .
"Is it not told that vampires, such as
are said to infest the ruins, lie dead be¬
tween sunup and sunset, Don Tomas?”
The question was gravely put.
"Si,” confirmed the magistrate of San¬
ta Rosalia—that fact was well known to
all men, as witness even the practical
senor from the North.
"Then why,” the senor from the North
300 WEIRD TALES
wanted to know, "why will your villagers
not assist us? It is only in the broad light
of the full day that we would ask their
labor."
"Ah!” explained the mayor, emphasiz¬
ing his point with a raised forefinger,
"those who go to the ruins and return,
by so doing make a clear trail to them¬
selves for los vampiros to follow.” He
hesitated before adding, "All those who
have gone we have later buried—when
they were drained of their blood upon
succeeding nights—with stakes driven
through their hearts!”
"Don” Tomas sensed the incredulity
behind Pembrooke’s polite mask.
"The priest buries them, Sehor, and he
consents to the act which is the only way
to prevent the vampires’ victims from be¬
coming even as are they. Our padre is a
Jesuit—an educated man—but he per¬
mits what I have told you. ... He
knows!”
"Only those who go to the ruins fall
prey to the vampires?” Pembrooke in¬
quired.
"No, Sehor,” was the sad denial. "It
is only that those who do go establish a
—what do you call it: contact?—with the
host of Tascala-the-damned. They are
sure quarry, who may be commanded in
their sleep to admit the vampires to their
accursed feasting.”
"Do the vampires come at other times
than when the ruins are visited?” Pem¬
brooke, the ethnologist, had an added
scientific interest in the folk-lore under¬
lying the mestizo functionary’s tale.
"Don” Tomas nodded gloomy affirma¬
tive.
"Aye,” he said, "the accursed ones
come often! Every village in this region
pays them tribute. We nail strings of
garlic—which the vampires detest—over
our windows and drape it across our doors
at night. Sometimes one is careless—and
later, perhaps, we bury that one with a
stake in his heart.”
Pembrooke could not restrain an ob¬
vious comment:
"I should think you would abandon
this village for some other place.”
The mayor blinked in naive and slight¬
ly alcoholic wonder at this observation.
He spread his hands in a gesture of fu¬
tility.
"Where would we go, Sehor? We have
always lived here, and our fathers lived
here, and their fathers in their time. Is
any place upon this earth free of the
shadow of evil?”
Pembrooke saw that he could expect
no help from this quarter. The mayor be¬
lieved his tale as thoroughly as any of
his villagers. It would be useless to an¬
tagonize him by scoffing at his supersti¬
tion, however, even while abandoning
hope of assistance from the inhabitants
of Santa Rosalia.
"Since we can get none of your peo¬
ple to assist us,” the American decided,
"it seems that we must send back to Ce-
layos for men to take their places.”
"Don” Tomas shrugged his shoulders.
That, he intimated, was none of his af¬
fair; and it might be that los vampiros,
being furnished with so many fresh vic¬
tims, would leave his people in peace
that much longer. Pembrooke secured
his ready promise that the villagers would
refrain from discussing, with whatever
laborers might be brought in from else¬
where, their own fear of the ruins.
P embrooke sought Doctor Whitaker
and Greely, who, after they had lis¬
tened to the account of his talk with the
jefe politico, agreed with him as to the
necessity of obtaining laborers, white if
possible, from Celayos or some other
likely place.
In the meantime, it was decided that
they themselves would make a prelimi-
 THE VENGEANCE OF IXMAL
nary survey of the ruins, preparatory to
the speedy commencement of work, once
help was sent for and obtained. Their
plans made, and the evening meal dis¬
posed of, the trio of Americans yielded
to the drowsiness that assailed them with
the coming of night.
Pembrooke had scarcely stretched him¬
self upon his camp bed, when it seemed
that his eyes were weighted with lead,
and an irresistible somnolence bore upon
him. As he was about to lose conscious¬
ness in sleep, soft footsteps sounded
from without, and there was a stirring of
the tent flap.
Fully awake upon the instant, like the
seasoned campaigner that he was, Pem¬
brooke raised upon one elbow, his other
hand reaching for the pistol beneath his
pillow. Despite his ordinarily iron nerves,
the lingering memory of the half-breed
mayor’s tale, told with such sincerity,
caused a momentary tingling along his
spine, and he could feel a prickling of the
short hairs at the base of his neck.
The eery feeling lasted but a moment,
however. Sharply he called:
"Who is it?” repeating the challenge in
Spanish: "Quien vtve?”
"So you are awake, my son?”
The answering voice, also in Spanish,
was seasoned with the burden of years,
but calm and clear. The voice added:
"This is Father Sebastiano—may I en¬
ter?”
"Assuredly, Padre,” Pembrooke wel¬
comed, lighting a lantern.
Father Sebastiano parted the flap and
came into the tent. The lantern’s yellow
light revealed him as a tall, spare man,
his thin face limned by not less than
three-score years, but keen and intelligent.
The hair upon his uncovered head was
sparse and snow-white. Despite his all
apparent age, there was vigor in his bear¬
ing, curiously combined with an air of
patient resignation. Certain telltale evi¬
301
dence of his features, and his darkly sal¬
low skin, bespoke his mestizo origin.
"Do I intrude?” the priest inquired.
"I am but shortly returned to the village,
coming at this hour because I received
word of your arrival, with information
of your purpose. My people are but sim¬
ple children, and I feared you might have
encountered a rough welcome, coming
with such intent.” He finished, simply,
"So I returned. I saw the light in your
tent before you put it out, and thought
perhaps to find you still awake.”
"There has been no trouble from the
villagers,” Pembrooke assured, proffering
a camp stool. "And there seems to be no
objection to our explorations. Only, there
is a concerted refusal to aid us—based, it
seems, wholly upon superstitious fear of
the ruins.”
Father Sebastiano listened in silence,
somewhat sadly, Pembrooke thought, as
the American told him of his talk with
the jefe politico.
"They are children, as I said before,”
sighed the priest when Pembrooke had
finished. "It is true,” he continued, "that
there are numerous deaths among the
people of this and neighboring villages,
where the corpses seem dessicated, drained
of blood. Whether the weakness preced¬
ing their deaths is caused by a form of
anemia, or some other disease of which I
am ignorant, I do not know. Although
we are so few actual miles from the cap¬
ital of our country, we are a primitive
community, without even a competent
man of medicine.”
"Is it also true that they drive wooden
stakes through the breasts of those who
die in the manner you have described?”
Pembrooke asked, curious.
"Yes,” sadly answered the Jesuit. "It
is one of the things I can not prevent, al¬
though I do not condone. In this poor
country of ours, all who serve Holy
Church know that the Indians defile the
302 WEIRD TALES
true faith with the superstitions of their
barbarous heritage.’’
"You believe it superstition, then—
these legends of the vampires of the ruins?
The mayor gave me to understand that
you sympathized with the local beliefs.”
"I am a servant of God!” sternly re¬
buked the priest. "How then should I
believe in the possibility, much less the
potency, of the foul curse of a never-ex-
istent demon-god of a heathen, blasphe¬
mous theology?”
A shade passed across Father Sebas-
tiano’s face. Hesitantly, almost fearfully,
and speaking more to himself than to
Pembrooke, he startled the latter by add¬
ing:
"And yet. . . there are things, as fear¬
some as this, spoken of in Holy Writ:
there are things that God, in his wisdom,
has not vouchsafed to me. Sometimes .. .
I do not know-”
He rose abruptly, repudiating his words
with a vehement gesture.
"I am getting into my dotage! I assess
penances to others, who need them less
than I.” He passed a thin hand wearily
across his brow. "I am tired. ... I
should not have disturbed you, but I
wished to know that strangers in our midst
were well, before I slept. Rest well, my
son, and God be with you.”
With his parting benediction, Father
Sebastiano lifted the tent flap, and stepped
into the night.
"For all his priestly training, the good
padre is, after all, half Indian,” Pem¬
brooke mused, as he again extinguished
his lantern. He slept undisturbed through
the remaining hours until dawn.
T he following morning, Pembrooke
suggested moving camp to within
the confines of the ruins, and the experi¬
ment of beginning work with only the
assistance of Pablo and Juan. Doctor
Whitaker, eager to begin the enterprise,
readily assented, and further agreed to a
slight bonus in addition to the regular
wages of the two Mexicans.
Once their decision was reached, the
party was soon od its way across the rough
country between the village and the ruins.
They left Santa Rosalia to the accompani¬
ment of silent, gloomy stares from the
villagers, who obviously considered them
fools marching deliberately to their doom.
Noon found their tents pitched within
a stone’s throw of the largest of the
mounds comprising the ruins, which Doc¬
tor Whitaker surmised had probably been
the great temple of the ancient city.
A supply of water had been their great¬
est concern, as they were able to bring
with them from Santa Rosalia only two
five-gallon casks of the precious fluid,
strapped with other gear upon a burro.
Pembrooke, however, disposed of this
worry by discovering a small natural res¬
ervoir, fed with fresh water from a clear
little spring.
After the heat of early afternoon had in
a measure abated. Doctor Whitaker set
Juan and Pablo to clearing away the sur¬
face growth and rubble from what were
clearly the ruins of a small building.
Many traces of other structures were
more clearly exposed than had been ex¬
pected, and Greely was busily at work
with his camera. Pembrooke and Doctor
Whitaker spent the afternoon in begin¬
ning a survey to mark the sites promising
the most profit to their limited means of
examination.
Sunset found the party, Americans and
Mexicans alike, weary from the exertions
of the day. After the evening repast, it
was not long until the camp lay wrapped
in silence, the drab khaki tents standing
starkly outlined against their uneven back¬
ground, bathed in the silvery clear Mex¬
ican moonlight.
As the night wore on, clouds obscured
the moon. Afar off, a coyote howled dis-
 THE VENGEANCE OF IXMAL
mally to the heedless stars. To one watch¬
ing, it would have become apparent that
dim forms moved among the canvas shel¬
ters in the ruins.
At the open entrance to the tent where
Pembrooke slept, a slightly built figure
peered inside with panting eagerness. The
figure glided into the shelter, bent low
over the recumbent form of the heavily
sleeping American, and paused, like a
hunting cheetah who sensed the slipping
of its leash.
The moon broke, momentarily, from
behind the clouds that, all unnaturally in
that arid sky, hung balefully about her
face. The pale light, struggling through
the open front of the tent, weirdly re¬
vealed the scene within. There seemed,
also, to be an added ghostly radiance,
emanating from no apparent source and
confined to the enclosing canvas.
Above the sleeping Pembrooke, her
slender tapering fingers hooked into the
semblance of poised talons, there bent
the slender form of a strange, weird
girl, who quivered as if with eagerness.
The bending girl was beautiful, with an
unholy beauty that was more repellent
than mere ugliness, marred as it was with
the obscene lust that distorted her perfect
features. Her eyes, wide and faintly lu¬
minous, glared with cruel gloating, like
those of a sleek and hungry leopardess
about to seize her prey. Lips that, in their
intended sweet repose, looked as if they
might have been sculptured from coral
by the loving hand of genius, writhed
back from sharp white teeth like sentient
things endowed with separate life and
volition of their own.
The girl—if girl she was!—stooped
yet lower, and in stooping, changed her
screening posture so that the moon shone
from behind her cloak, full upon Pem-
brooke’s face. With a low, choking cry,
she drew back. For a moment she stood
tense; then a name escaped the carmine
303
lips. It was a sound wrenched from the
depths of anguish:
"Hautepec!”
Pembrooke (as if he had lain heavily
under a spell of slumber, and the cry
was the charm that broke his enchant¬
ment) roused instantly, alert and reach¬
ing for his gun.
"Who is it?” he challenged, pistol lev¬
eled in his hand. Then he was aware
that it was a woman who confronted him
in the dimness of the tent’s interior—a
woman who stood as if stricken, shield¬
ing her face with her hands. A second
strangled cry escaped from behind the
screening fingers.
"Hautepec!”
Pembrooke sprang from his cot, dis¬
carding his weapon in consideration of
the intruder’s sex. Swiftly he lit the lan¬
tern hanging from the ridgepole of the
tent.
"What do you want?” he demanded
roughly, turning again to his uninvited
visitor. Slowly, as he looked, the frown
of annoyance left his face; the grim lines
about his mouth softened. There came
into the eyes a look of bewilderment,
surprize, and something that betokened,
so it seemed, the groping of elusive mem¬
ory. The girl—she could have counted
hardly more than twenty years—had
dropped her hands, and stood regarding
him with wide, beseeching eyes.
"Who are you?” Pembrooke again
questioned. His eyes took in the girl’s
beauty, which had somehow lost its erst¬
while underlying horror. He noted the
soft rounding of her chin, the seductive
turn of her throat and neck. Her hair,
ebon as the wings of night, and so sleek
that the lantern’s light glanced off it like
a nimbus about her head, was parted and
drawn back over little ears, of which only
the tips peeped shyly forth. A simple
golden fillet held one great green stone
above her forehead. Her skin was richly,
304 WEIRD TALES
warmly golden, with an effect of clear
transparency that heightened its loveli¬
ness. A nose, straight, but thin-bridged
and delicately chiseled, proclaimed with
pride, rather than betrayed, the ancient
blood of Mexico.
The girl’s garments were perhaps the
strangest part of her strange self. A sim¬
ple slip of what looked like soft white
cotton fabric covered her slender body,
from shoulders to half-way between knees
and shapely ankles. The simplicity of the
dress was relieved at neck and hem by
rich and exquisite embroidery in green
thread, in which were sewn, profusely,
what might have been pearls and gems of
green and red and turquoise blue. San¬
dals, that were little more than gilded
soles, were bound with colored cord to
tiny, high-arched bare feet.
All this Pembrooke noted in one ap¬
praising glance. He felt a strange stir¬
ring, deep within himself, as of the awak¬
ening of tender but long-forgotten mem¬
ories. There was something about this
woman that, in the length of his swift
appraisal, made his blood course faster—
as there was also something that chilled
him, even as his pulses leaped.
The girl spoke. Her voice, silvery clear
and musical, flowed forth in a cascade of
words. From her tones, it seemed that
she entreated, and was by turns hopeful
and despairing. Mostly, she was desper¬
ately imploring.
So Pembrooke thought, understanding
no part of what she said. The girl spoke
in a language that was like none he knew;
indeed, her words were akin to those of
no tongue he had ever heard before. He
shook his head to indicate his lack of un¬
derstanding.
A look of anguish swept into the
girl’s dark eyes at Pembrooke’s neg¬
ative gesture, which gave way to bewil¬
derment and, finally, to relieved compre¬
hension. She glided swiftly forward and,
before he was aware of her intention,
drew Pembrooke’s head down with her
hands, so that she could look deep into
his eyes.
The American shuddered at her touch:
there was a repellent coldness to the flesh
that seemed so warm and golden. Ere he
could draw back, the feeling passed. In¬
stead, it seemed that the tent and all its
fixtures were becoming dim and indis¬
tinct. They stood in the open, in the
midst of the barren ruins.
There was no sign of the other tents,
of his companions: he was alone with
this strange and yet curiously familiar
princess—it did not occur to him to won¬
der how he knew she was a princess, or
aught else concerning her.
The girl, still gazing deeply into Pem¬
brooke’s eyes, spoke again. This time
her words fell upon understanding ears.
Dimly, Pembrooke was aware that the
princess spoke in some strange tongue
with which he had no prior acquaintance;
yet he understood, as clearly as if her
words were English.
"Hautepec,” murmured the beautiful
lips, "beloved, you have come at last!”
"Hautepec? Beloved?” Pembrooke
struggled with the haunting whispers of
ghostly recollection.
"Do you not remember Tascala—have
the passing cycles effaced even the mem¬
ory from your heart?”
"Tascala?” Pembrooke hoarsely echoed.
There was an active familiarity about the
name. It struck chords of fond remem¬
brance; and at the same time it roused a
surge of bitterness that caused Pembrooke,
involuntarily, to force the small, cold
hands roughly from his face.
"Then you do remember?” u’hispered
she who called herself Tascala, flinching
at her repulse. "You remember—and
will not forgive?”
"There is something that prompts me
W. T.—1
 THE VENGEANCE OF IXMAL
to hate you . . . Tascaia.” Pembrooke
brushed a hand wearily across his eyes.
"Yet, I know I want to quench in your
arms the lire that burns me at your near¬
ness—to hold you dose, and press your
lips with mine until I bruise them—Tas¬
caia!”
There was a low, joyous cry from Tas¬
caia. She seized Pembrooke’s hand in
both her own, so that once again he shud¬
dered at the icy coldness of her fingers,
even as her touch thrilled him.
"Come!” Tascaia urged. "Let me show
you once again those things you have for¬
gotten. You must know to understand,
and understanding, you will forgive—
you must forgive!”
Pembrooke followed as she, one hand
holding fast to his, led toward the mound
that Doctor Whitaker thought had been
the great temple. It seemed they climbed
the massive pile; at least, Pembrooke
found himself atop it with the princess.
Strangely enough (and yet it seemed
quite natural, too), he discovered that he
really was not upon the summit of what
had been the temple, after all, but within
its base. Rather, he seemed to see within
a room without actually being there: it
was as if he were present in that part of
him that saw, and heard, and understood,
while he, embodied, was absent else¬
where. He knew, too, that these were the
quarters of Ixmal, high priest of the
temple.
The high priest sat upon a bench
over which a costly feather mantle was
carelessly draped. To Pembrooke, whose
senses only recorded the meaning of what
he saw and heard, without emotion or
analysis, it occasioned no surprize that
the hawk-nosed, fierce-eyed Ixmal was
perfectly familiar. Had he not known
him since infancy? Were they not, in¬
deed, princes of the same great house?
The high priest addressed an under¬
ling, who bent an attentive and obse-
W. T —2
305
quious ear. This under-priest was old;
ot it may have been that his face was
seamed and lined and burnt with the sins
that fired his sunken, evil eyes. The high
priest spoke:
"You are skilled in such matters: Is
there a drug to bend her will to mine?”
"The simplest of them all, Lord Ix¬
mal,” leered the under-priest. "There is
the plant which, smoked and inhaled
deeply into the lungs like ordinary tabac,
both inspires the smoker with false cour¬
age or ferocity and, at the same time, sub¬
jects him—or her!—to the hypnotic in¬
fluence of a stronger personality.”
"Ah!” breathed the high priest. "Is it
readily obtainable?”
"I have sufficient, and more than suf¬
ficient, Lord-”
"Popotchla,” Ixmal interrupted hh un¬
derling, "as is known to you, I have, with
the aid of the Emperor Montezuma, forced
our King Cacomac to enroll his daugh¬
ter, the Princess Tascaia, as a priestess
in the temple.”
The priest, Popotchla, inclined his
head.
"It is well known, Lord Ixmal,” he
smugly affirmed, "that the princess serves
in the temple as a sign to the people that
the royal family serves the gods with true
devotion.”
"Aye!” fiercely spoke the high priest.
"The king secretly longs for a return to
the unenlightened faith of our fathers:
he would like to see our altars once more
decked with flowers and laden with offer¬
ings of fruits, as in the days before the
coming of the Aztecs brought us the true
faith. The gods demand human sacri¬
fices, not the fruits of the field!”
"And the spirits of the gods enter the
sacrifices,” smoothly supplemented Popot¬
chla, "and partaking thereof imparts the
attributes of gods to men.”
"It is so!” Fanaticism burned in the
high priest’s angry eyes. "Partaking of
306 WEIRD TALES
the consecrated food is mandatory, a nec¬
essary ceremony—and the king likes it
not. The Princess Tascala, aided and en¬
couraged by the Prince Hautepec, her
suitor and my own kinsman, wholly re¬
fuses the sacred sustenance of our ritual.”
“The people hold in great esteem the
Princess Tascala—and the Lord Haute¬
pec,” Popotchla maliciously observed.
"True!” agreed Ixmal. "It is for that
very reason that the princess must, by pre¬
cept and example, encourage the people
in the strict reverence of our gods. A man
may not say of his worship: 'I will do
this, because it seems good to me; but I
will not do that, as it is contrary to my
liking.’ That is heresy, and presumption
to the sacred function of the priesthood
—it is blasphemy to the gods!
"Aye! The princess must yield, even
if we drive the devils from her mind
with drugs!”
"And the Prince Hautepec?” slyly
prompted Popotchla.
“Ah!” The exclamation was a snarl.
"Hautepec dies upon the rock of sacri¬
fice!” Higher leaped the flame of fanati¬
cism in Ixmal’s burning eyes. "The royal
family and the nobles have bred heresy
among the people, and they must atone
with the sacrifice of one of their number
—perhaps more!
"I would see a strong Tapalapan, a
Tapalapan in her rightful place at the
head of the confederacy of Anahauc, in¬
stead of yielding that place to Mexico
and acknowledging Montezuma’s over¬
lordship. ... Yet how may that be, if
the gods withhold favor, to punish a weak
state for the heresy of her weak king?
The gods must be served, and Tapalapan
wax strong through their subvention.”
The high priest fell silent; with a ges¬
ture he dismissed Popotchla. After the
vulpine under-priest had slipped away,
Ixmal sat wrapped in revery, brooding
and absorbed in his scheming.
"Yea,” he soliloquized, rousing after
a moment, "Hautepec dies upon the altar!
He is nephew to the king, and therefore
eligible for election by the Council of
Great Nobles which now openly favors
him, to succeed his royal uncle. Never
will a weakling among the puppet sons
of Cacomac be chosen to follow after his
impotent sire. And I, who must other¬
wise stand aside for Hautepec, could force
my own election were he but removed!
... If Ixmal serve the gods, and also
serve himself thereby, shall blame attach
to him for that?
"Montezuma—himself a priest before
he was called to be an emperor—wiH
eagerly confirm the sentence of death by
sacrifice, which my unanswerable charge
of heresy shall force the courts to pass
upon my rival. The emperor’s policy, no
less than his honest orthodoxy, must move
him so. Montezuma rightly fears that
Hautepec would prove a restive and am¬
bitious vassal—nor suspects that I, t®
whom he lends support, will incline far
less to vassalage!”
T he picture changed. It was almost
midday, and the fierce sun of Ana¬
hauc beat down upon the summit of the
temple, as the temple stood in its time of
pride and arrogance.
Slowly, inexorably, the Lord of the
Day climbed to his zenith. Golden rays,
like searching fingers, crept toward a slit
in the stone canopy upon the topmost
platform of the great pyramidal teocali
of sanguinary Mexitl, dread God of War.
Tensely impatient, the red-robed and fa¬
natical-eyed high priest waited, the sac¬
rificial knife of polished obsidian half
raised in eager readiness.
Between the twin square towers, fifty
feet in height, that rose from the flat top
of the temple and housed the grotesque
images of its major deities, Cacomac, Lord
of Tapalapan, sat in the midst of the re-
 THE VENGEANCE OF IXMAE
splendent nobles—and not a few of the
ladies—of his court. Far below, close-
packed about the pyramid’s base, the ex¬
pectant populace awaited the climax of
the ghastly tableau poised above them.
Waited, also, the doomed figure—that
Petnbrooke knew to be himself! ■—
stretched upon his back across the war
god’s altar. A pair of black-robed priests,
wild-eyed and with loose matted hair fall¬
ing over their shoulders, each bore down
upon an ankle of their victim. A similar
pair held his arms spread wide and down¬
ward over the sides of the altar; while the
fifth of the gruesome team cupped hands
beneath his chin, pulling his head back¬
ward. The sacrifice was ready, his body
arched over the convex stone, his heaved-
up chest a taut offering to the high priest’s
office.
The man upon the altar, with a sudden
mighty wrench of his arms, broke free of
the restraining priests and sat upright
upon the stone. He made no further
move to escape, but sat with one arm out¬
stretched, pointing accusingly at the red-
robed priestess who had handed Ixmal the
itzli, and who now stood behind the high
priest, waiting with avid eyes in which
there was yet a dulled but haunting hor¬
ror. The priestess was Tascala—but a
Tascala whose face was blank and void of
feeling, with only her wild, drugged eyes
alight. Before he could be borne down
again, the prince upon the altar spoke,
and there was something in his bearing
that caused the priests to halt.
"I, Hautepec, Prince of Tapalapan and
once a chief of the king’s armies, do curse
you with these last words of mine—Tas¬
cala!” His bitter face turned to the sky,
he called:
"Hear me, a warrior, dread Mexitl!
Take me as sacrifice, but seal my curse
upon this woman: May her foul appetite
become an ever greater lust! May she
find no peace from her ravening, even in
307
the halls of the dead—may her unnatural
hunger outlast Tapalapan and cheat her
of die rest she shall long for in her tomb!
Let her live through the cycles of eternity,
a slave to her lust for the flesh and blood
of mankind. May she be a thing of hor¬
ror, and those upon whom she preys be¬
come as she, so that her name shall be a
curse in the mouths of men!
"And as for Ixmal, who has never
made false pretense to be my friend, nor
disavowed his enmity for me as one who
stood athwart the path of his ambition—
him I leave to the doom of his own con¬
triving. . . .
"A sign, O God of Warriors—a sign,
and I will be your willing sacrifice!”
Strangely, while the company upon the
platform of the temple stood rooted in
their tracks, and the populace below mur¬
mured with awe and terror—a cloud over¬
spread the fierce countenance of the sun.
The heavens darkened, and a blanket of
thicker, almost tangible blackness envel¬
oped the summit of the teocali. Light¬
ning played evilly between the towers of
the temple; there were rustlings and move¬
ments within the sable murk about the
altar—the sense and feel of a grim, ter¬
rible, amorphous Presence. A Voice,
that was yet voiceless, beat upon the con¬
sciousness of those who were enveloped
in the bank of darkness.
"I hear!” The formless words of the
Presence smote with the thunder of si¬
lence. "I hear! And cursed be the Prin¬
cess Tascala, with the curse of this man
whom men name Hautepec.”
"Forever, O Mexitl?” demanded the
voice of the inflexible prince.
"The cycles of time turn within them¬
selves—there is no Beginning, no End¬
ing, no Forever,” replied the wordless
Voice. "Cursed be Tascala—until Haute¬
pec forgive her!”
"It is forever!” fiercely, exultantly,
cried the prince who sat upright upon the
'308 WEIRD TALES
altar. "Traitress to me, her affianced lov¬
er, abetter of false Ixmal who is traitor
to her king and father! Forgive her?
Never!”
"The sacrifice is acceptable,” abruptly
and grimly the Voice announced.
The black mists swirled and eddied,
dissolved as abruptly as they had gath¬
ered. The burning, blinding light of
day again bathed the temple. The priests
upon the sacrificial platform recovered
from their terror.
"The God accepts the sacrifice!” shout¬
ed Ixmal. Once more, the doomed Haute-
pec lay pinioned on the altar.
Now, at long last, the sunlight pierced
the slit in the stone canopy, signaling the
commencement of the sacrifices. A warm
golden spot settled softly, caressingly,
over the heart of the prince. The high
priest’s arm rose: there was a flash of
light to mark the upward arc of the itzli
in his hand. . . .
A gain the scene shifted. With weird
k. insight and the eye of reincarnated
memory, Pembrooke watched as fragments
of the past were re-enacted in swift,
kaleidoscopic succession.
He saw Tascala, half crazed with the
drug introduced into her tobacco, which
she used as did most of the women of
her class and nation—saw Tascala fierce¬
ly spurn Ixmal’s lewd advances. Yet again,
in another fragmentary picture, there was
Tascala at the altar upon the temple’s
flat apex, violating all the set and rigorous
ceremony of sacrifice and the limitations
placed upon her sex, brushing Ixmal aside
after the priest had plunged his knife into
a victim and torn out his heart. He saw
Tascala bend over the ensanguined orifice
in the breast of the still quivering wretch
upon the altar, while the company upon
the teocali grew sick with horror. Her
lips . . . writhed. . . .
In the flash of another picture, Tascala,
the light of sanity in her haunted and
sunken eyes, drained a measure of what
Pembrooke instinctively knew was deadly
venom. He saw her body later buried
whole, instead of being cremated as was
often done.
One final, fleeting picture: Tascala—
though Tascala had been dead!—leaned
in the night, gloating and vengeful, above
the sleeping form of the high priest,
Ixmal. . . .
After that, although how long after¬
ward he did not know, Pembrooke found
himself once more upon the top of the
great mound that was the ruined temple.
Tascala was still there before him, and
he fancied, dully, that she had just passed
her cold hands across his brow. The yet
clouded noon had now swung low across
the sky.
"Have you seen, beloved? And see¬
ing, have you understood? Have you un¬
derstood how foul Ixmal drugged away
my will—my very sanity—and sowed
with his own will that dreadful seed
that grew beyond what even he intended?”
Tascala’s voice trembled, broke.
"And you, Hautepec, you laid upon
me the curse that made of me a thing of
fear and horror. Ah, Hautepec! Have I
not atoned? You have made me suffer
ten thousand times ten thousandfold, tor¬
tures worse than all the Pits of Evil could
offer. I suffer thus, and have suffered the
anguish of your love lost to my poor
drugged heart and mind, because you
asked it of great Mexitl—I suffer thus,
until you forgive!’'
Her eyes burning with anguish and en¬
treaty, Tascala held out her slim, rounded
arms to Pembrooke. He gazed at her with
lurking horror in the depths of his own
eyes; but there was pity, too—and some¬
thing vastly more. He wanted, more than
he had ever wanted anything, to feel this
woman, soft and warm, held close in
his arms. It seemed he had wanted her
 THE VENGEANCE OF IXMAL
for centuries: it explained, perhaps, why
he had never loved another.
After all, he reasoned, swift thoughts
surging in his brain that was once more
and strangely clear: after all, was not
he—if he had once been Hautepec—more
responsible for her final evil fate than
had been Ixmal? If his forgiveness could
cleanse her, give her peace—give her to
him-
"I forgive you!” The hoarse voice
sounded to him like another’s. "I—love
—you, still!”
"Beloved!” Tascala sobbed with rap¬
ture, her arms opened wide to Pembrooke.
She took one impulsive step toward him,
then paused, lifting her unearthly beau¬
tiful, radiant face to the night sky.
"Great Mexitl,” cried the princess, in
a voice that rang like the peal of an im¬
perious silver bell, "dread God, hear thou
this man! He forgives: lift thou the
curse!”
Upon the heels of her words, great
clouds of blackness swooped around and
enveloped the summit of the mound, as
they had cloaked the teocali on that day
of ancient time. The dark mists seethed
and billowed angrily; lightning flashes
slithered uneasily about within their dis¬
turbed folds. Again there was the seem¬
ing of a dread Presence brooding in the
caliginous dark.
"Dost thou hear, great Mexitl?” the
clear, undaunted voice of the princess de¬
manded.
"I hear,” replied the voice of the Pres¬
ence, speaking soundlessly as of yore. "I
hear! But lift thou thine own curse—if
thou canst! Take him in thy cold arms,
and see if his forgiveness and thy love
be stronger than his curse. The task is
thine!” There was an evil, hidden humor
in the monstrous, voiceless utterance.
As abruptly as it had come, the sable
cloak of mist was gone. The moon had
sunk but little lower.
309
Tascala raised her arms again to Pem¬
brooke.
"You have heard, beloved! Can you
take me, as I am, in your arms and warm
my cold body with your love? Then in¬
deed shall the curse be lifted.”
"Yes, Tascala!” Pembrooke swept her
into her arms; and so great was his hun¬
ger for her that her deathly coldness
caused him no revulsion. And she was
soft. He felt her exquisite body, her
rounded breasts, melt against him as he
drew her close. Her arms stole upward
to his neck.
Then, from aside, a snarling voice
spoke; and it seemed as if the words were
thrown, so violently did they smite upon
the ears of the pair who stood entwined.
"Stop, Tascala—fool!”
There upon the mound with them, red-
robed and fierce-eyed, Ixmal stood, his
face a livid mask of passion.
"Stop!” he repeated.
"Begone, Ixmal!” the princess com¬
manded. "With the lifting of the curse,
you shall be no more than dust. It is
only through me, and through the curse
that came to me of your evilness, that you
have your foul life-in-death. You belong
to the dust of Tapalapan!”
Ixmal laughed, but there was no mirth
in the sound.
"And you?” he jeered. "Do you not
belong with that same dust?”
Pembrooke felt Tascala flinch within
his arms. She lifted fearful, startled eyes
to his, in which apprehension matched
her own. Her arms paused in their travel
to his shoulders. Then all at once her
face grew calm and quietly serene.
"I think not, Ixmal! I do not believe
the gods jest with their promises, nor pun¬
ish twice the same offense. If I forfeit
this unreal survival of myself when I was
called Tascala—it will but end one long
(Please turn to page 415)
 Vhe <np
<J I ouse
of the Living Dead
By HAROLD WARD
An amazing goose-flesh story of disinterred corpses that breathed, lived and
loved again—a tale of stark horror
1. John Harper
“TlVING corpses! Men and women,
I filched from the grave, festering
" A in their moldering cerements,
talking, laughing, dancing, breathing,
holding hellish jubilee! All this have I
seen—and more. Yet who will believe
me—I who am an inmate of the House
of the Living Dead? Even as I pen this
screed I look down and see the rotting
cloth dropping from my mildewed frame¬
work with every move and feel the mag¬
gots bore their tortuous way through my
decaying carcass. Ugh! Even I, living
dead man that I am, inured to the horror
of it all, shudder as I write.
"I am helpless. Would that I had the
power to free myself from the foul grasp
of Lessman, the master of us all! Across
the room lies the body of Carter Cope.
Soon, but not until Lessman commands,
I will return to occupy it. My body be¬
longs to him—to Doctor Lessman. But
my soul is my own, even though Lessman
holds it in his clutches. For the soul does
not die. Ah, a wonderful man is Darius
Lessman—able as he is to throw off his
temporal body and assume that of
another. He is a superman — or a
devil. I-”
Asa Rider, private investigator, laid
the manuscript on the table before him
with a snort of disgust.
'What twaddle is this?” he demanded
angrily. "My time is too valuable, Mr.
310
Harper, to devote to such drivel. It is
nothing but the maniacal gibberings of a
diseased brain. I-”
His visitor stopped him with a little
gesture.
"But is it?” he questioned gravely.
"Do I look like the sort of man to be
stampeded? As I told you at the com¬
mencement of our interview, I am an at¬
torney of twenty-five years’ standing. I
know Carter Cope. Only a few months
ago he was in my office. He came in re¬
sponse to my request. I, as attorney for
Priestly Ogden, retained him to institute
a search for that unfortunate young man.
I can honestly say that he is no more in¬
sane than you are. He disappeared that
night. His car was found, a battered pile
of junk, in an abandoned stone quarry
many miles north of here. His body has
never been found.
"I never believed that he was dead.
Then, yesterday, this weird manuscript
reached me by mail. It was in a sealed en¬
velope placed within another envelope,
both addressed to me. With it was a brief
note from a man who signs himself Fred
Rolfe stating that he had picked it up
alongside the road close to Oakwood cem¬
etery. The handwriting, both in the body
of the manuscript and on the envelope, is
that of Carter Cope.
"Briefly, sir, I believe that Carter Cope
is the victim of some terrible misfortune.
Possibly, as you have suggested, it may
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
be mental. But, at any rate, he still lives.
I want you to seek him out and save him
from this—this thing, whatever it is. I
sent Carter Cope into it, just as I am seek¬
ing to send you. I feel a moral responsi¬
bility and John Harper is not the man to
shirk his responsibilities. My private for¬
tune—and I am not a poor man by any
means—is at your command. Incidental¬
ly, in seeking him, you may run across a
clue to the whereabouts of Priestly
Ogden. I ask you this favor, Mr. Rider:
Read the manuscript to the end. Diag¬
nose it with an open mind. Having fin¬
ished it, if you do not care to accept the
commission, I will seek some other detec¬
tive. Otherwise-”
"Why did you come to me?” Rider in¬
terrupted bluntly. "I am a stranger to
you. My reputation is not so great that
3U
you would seek me out without some good
reason.”
John Harper shrugged his shoulders.
"Perhaps you are not unknown to me,”
he responded quickly. "And I know you
to be a single man, your closest relative a
distant cousin. I am sending you into
danger. And, frankly, you will not be
greatly missed should you meet the same
fate that seems to have overtaken Carter
Cope and Priestly Ogden. I say with
equal frankness that I doubt whether you
will come out of the affair alive. I have a
feeling—call it a hunch, if you choose—
to that effect. The man who accepts my
commission can not be a coward.”
"Your talk of danger intrigues me,”
Rider said hotly. "Leave the manuscript
here. Let me read it through. I will give
you my answer in the morning.”
312 WEIRD TALES
John Harper rose to his feet.
"I will be at the Lincoln Tavern until
noon tomorrow,” he responded, extending
his hand. ' I will expect an acceptance by
that time or the return of the manuscript.
Meanwhile"—his hand moved toward
his pocket—"what about a retaining fee?
It is customary, I believe.”
Rider shook his head.
"Should I accept your commission, I
will render my bill when I have finished
my work,” he answered. "And I warn
you in advance, Mr. Harper, that it will
not be a small one.”
"Bring me the solution of the puzzle
and there will be no quibbling over your
fee,” Harper asserted. "I want to know
the truth regardless of the cost.”
He moved toward the door. Even be¬
fore it closed behind him. Rider knew
that he would accept the lawyer’s tender.
He filled and lighted his brier and
gathered the sheaf of papers together.
They were in pencil, somewhat in the
form of a diary, although undated. With
them was a clipping from some news¬
paper, it, like the manuscript, being
without date.
They are given here verbatim:
2. The Strange Story of Carter Cope
1 am writing this in the House of the
Living Dead. I know it by no other
name. Perhaps, some time, some one will
find this manuscript and explain my
strange fate to the world. Now-
But I digress. Let me start at the be¬
ginning, hard though it is to tell the
story.
There was something sinister and fore¬
boding about the rambling old place that
caused me to shudder in spite of myself.
On either side was a clump of evergreens
through which each breath of vagrant
wind soughed and moaned like a lost soul
in purgatory. A scant hundred yards
away to the right was a tiny, vine-covered
ruin of a church, its spire rotting and
drooping, its windows broken. Surround¬
ing it was a tangle of underbrush and
weeds through which I caught a glimpse
of sunken graves and fallen tombstones.
The house was a huge pile of brick and
stone and wood. It sprawled against the
side of the little hill like some squat, un¬
gainly monster in the midst of a fetid
jungle. The weed-grown burying-ground
extended through the evergreens almost to
the flagstone path which wound, twisting
and snake-like, through the mass of creep¬
ers and lilac bushes and stunted arbor-
vitas trees with which the front yard was
filled. There was something eery and
unreal about the place—something that
gave me a feeling that if I investigated
closer I would find a layer of fungus over
everything.
Surrounding the unsightly ensemble
was a high, iron fence, the pickets sharp¬
ened at the top.
I swung open the creaking gate and
entered, only to leap back with an excla¬
mation of fright as the head and shoul¬
ders of a man suddenly appeared out of
a little clump of bushes. He was a huge
lump of a fellow, loutish and uncouth,
his beard black and tangled, the hair—
which hung low over his retreating fore¬
head—long and matted and filled with
sand burs. For an instant he gazed at
me, an idiotic grin on his dough-like face,
while I stared blankly back. Then I re¬
covered myself and plunged into speech.
"I am looking for Doctor Darius Less-
man,” I informed him civilly. "Does he
live here?”
The man made neither sound nor com¬
ment. Not a gleam of comprehension
flitted over his ox-like face. I repeated
the question again. For what seemed ages
he stood there gazing dumbly at me.
Then, with a queer, gurgling, throaty
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
sound, he turned and disappeared back
into the tangle of underbrush.
I was tempted to turn and retreat to
my car, which stood beside the road a
dozen rods away. Again the boding of
disaster swept over me. In spite of the
fact that the day had been hot and sultry,
I felt the chills chase themselves up and
down my spinal column. Would to God
I had yielded to that feeling and left the
accursed place then and there. Instead,
cursing myself for a fool, I squared my
shoulders and continued my way up the
stone-paved path.
The door before which I found myself
was of nail-studded oak, blackened with
age and flanked on either side by narrow
panes of dark-colored glass. There was
no sign of bell or knocker. Doubling
my fist, I pounded a lusty tattoo.
There was no answer. I rapped again,
cursing under my breath. I had a feeling
that there was somebody on the other side
of the panels, although I. heard nothing.
I raised my knuckles to rap again, when
the door opened a tiny crack and an eye
peered out at me. I opened my mouth to
speak, when the eye was suddenly with¬
drawn. A chain rattled. Then the door
was slowly opened and I found myself
staring into the face of a young woman
attired in the conventional garb of a
nurse.
"Pardon the delay in answering your
summons,” she said in a rich, throaty con¬
tralto. "In a place like this we, naturally,
are forced to be careful.”
She waited for me to answer. She was
tall—taller than the average—and dark
with the clear, white skin of the Eurasian.
Her hair was drawn back under her pert
little cap; it was as blade as the darkness
of a moonless night, while the eyes which
gazed inquiringly into mine were as deep
and unfathomable as limpid pools.
"Doctor Lessman,” I managed to artic¬
ulate.
313
"What is your business with him?” she
demanded pleasantly, although firmly.
"Doctor Lessman is, as you are no doubt
aware, a very busy man. I am his sec¬
retary.”
I nodded and presented my credentials.
"Carter Cope,” she said, gazing down
at the card in the leather-covered case I
held in front of her eyes. "You are a
detective?”
"In search of a young man named
Priestly Ogden,” I hastened to explain.
”1 have been retained by his relatives—
or rather, by his lawyer for them.”
"And where does Doctor Lessman fit
into the picture?” she inquired.
"I hardly know myself,” I smiled back
at her. "The fact is that in searching
through the young man’s effects I
chanced upon a scrap of paper on which
the doctor’s name was written. Investiga¬
tion showed that he is licensed to operate
a sanitarium for the treatment of mental
disorders. Resolved to run down every
possible clue, I came here in the hope that
some quirk in the young man’s brain
prompted him to place himself under the
doctor’s care in the belief that he was tem¬
porarily deranged.”
She nodded her comprehension.
"I can recall no patient by that name,”
she said thoughtfully. "However, it
would be best for you to talk to the doc¬
tor. Step into the office, please, and 1
will call him.”
T he room in which I found myself
was out of keeping with the gloomy
exterior of the house. It was gorgeously
furnished, its columns of lapis-lazuli, the
great fireplace across the end of onyx and
marble. The walls were panelled and
covered with silken curtains; the rugs
were Persian and almost priceless. Here
and there hung rare paintings; scattered
about were exquisite marbles in keeping
with the remainder of the great room.
314 WEIRD TALES
I dropped into a large Louis XV diair
and looked about me.
"Doctor Lessman is busy just now,” the
girl informed me as she glided into the
room. "I have informed him of your
presence, however, and he will be with
you inside of a few minutes.”
She left the room again, closing the
door behind her. I heard the click of a
bolt and knew that I had been locked in¬
side. My dealings with hospitals for the
insane had been negligible, however, and
I solaced myself with the thought that
this, perhaps, was the customary proced¬
ure in places such as this.
For a moment I busied myself in mak¬
ing a mental survey of the room and its
treasures. Then the thought suddenly
flashed through my mind that, even
though the sun was shining brightly out¬
side, the place was artificially lighted. I
glanced toward the windows. What I
discovered there gave me a start.
The rich tapestry curtains covered
thick steel shutters, tightly padlocked.
ou wished to see me, sir?”
I woke from my revery. The man
who stood before me was tall and thin
almost to the point of emaciation. He
was clad in a surgeon’s white smock, his
coal-black hair brushed straight back.
His nose was thin and hooked slightly,
his dark beard trimmed to a needle-point.
It was his eyes, however, which attracted
me most. They were black and beady,
deeply sunken in their sockets and
thatched by heavy brows, giving his coun¬
tenance an appearance at once saturnine
and satanic.
I leaped to my feet with an apology.
"You are Doctor Lessman?”
He nodded. Then:
"My secretary tells me that you are
seeking a young man—Ogden, I believe
she said the name was?”
While he was speaking he motioned
me back to my chair, at the same time
seating himself on the opposite side of
the table. From one of the drawers he
drew forth a sack of smoking-tobacco and
a book of papers and, taking a leaf there¬
from, deftly rolled himself a cigarette.
"Smoke?” he inquired, pushing a humi¬
dor of cigars across to me.
I nodded and accepted one of the
weeds. He waited until I had lighted it,
then plunged into a mass of questions
which almost left me breathless with the
answering. The man was a brilliant talk¬
er, examining me so deftly that inside of
five minutes he had milked me dry in
spite of myself, learning almost as much
of my past life as I knew myself.
"A bachelor, eh?” he said reflectively.
"Quite the thing, I would imagine, for
one whose occupation is as dangerous as
yours. Criminology has always been a
hobby of mine; I regret that I have not
had the time to study it more. Take the
present instance—psychologically, I mean.
I would like to know what reasoning led
you to believfe that your man, Ogden, was
here?”
We are all more or less susceptible to
flattery. I am no different from the aver¬
age man. I told him of my search for
the missing young man and the finding
of the slip of paper among his effects
with Lessman’s name written on it.
“It was my belief,” I said, taking the
bit of paper from my pocket and passing
it across the table to the physician, "that
the young man might be suffering from a
belief that he was off mentally and that
he had, therefore, placed himself under
your care.”
Lessman slowly shook his head as he
examined the paper I had handed him.
"Not my writing,” he said. Then:
"In other words, Mr. Cope, your visit
here is merely one of the thousand little
details connected with your profession?"
I nodded.
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
"By running down each tiny due we
eventually hit upon something which
leads us to the solution of the puzzle we
are working on,” I answered somewhat
grandiloquently.
"Your man Watson?” he inquired
with a twinkle in his deep-set eyes. "I
presume you have one—some admirer
who takes notes of your triumphs and
mistakes in the hope of some day hand¬
ing your exploits down to posterity?”
I shook my head.
"I work entirely alone,” I replied.
"My trip here will, like thousands of my
other mistakes, never be chronicled for
the simple reason that no one will ever
know of it. No one knows that I am here
and I am not fool enough to tell of my
blunder. It is only my successes that I
report.”
I realized too late that my answer was
what he had been seeking for. His face
changed. The look of dignity was wiped
out in an instant and in its place came a
peculiar, evil stare.
I started to leap to my feet. Something
held me in my chair as in a vise. What
was it? I do not know. Nor do I under¬
stand it to this day. I struggled against it
with all the power at my command, but
in vain. I tried to talk. My tongue clove
to the roof of my mouth. My head was
as dear as a bell. I could think and rea¬
son, but I could not co-ordinate my mus-
cles. I was paralyzed.
L essman bent over me for an instant.
i Then he stepped across the floor and
opened the door.
"Meta!” he called sharply.
The girl entered. She gave a single
look at me, then dropped into a chair and
covered her face with her hands.
"Another?” she wailed. "Oh, God!
No more—no more! This—this horrible
—this awful thing has gone far enough!”
Lessman stretched his hand toward her.
315
She rose, half crouching, and approached
my side. Then she sprang back again, a
look of revulsion spreading over her
beautiful face.
"Some other time. Some other time,”
she wailed. "I can not go through with
it today.”
A dog-whip was lying on one of the
chairs. Lessman seized it and brought it
down across her beautiful shoulders. With
the first blow her attitude changed. For
an instant she cowered in the corner.
Then, as he struck her again, he hissed a
word of command. She tore her gown
open in the front and allowed its folds to
drop around her, baring her beautiful
body to the lash. Across the white flesh
the cruel whip raised a dozen red welts.
She took a step closer to her tormenter.
Again and again he struck her with all
the force at his command.
The expression on her face was not one
of pain, but of sensual enjoyment. She
uttered no sound as she stood there, her
lips parted slightly in a smile that showed
her gleaming teeth, a look of almost dog¬
like devotion in her wonderful eyes.
With a snarl, the doctor finally hurled the
whip upon the floor. She leaped for¬
ward and dropped to her knees at his
feet, her arms raised in an attitude of sup¬
plication.
"You are my master!” she exclaimed
proudly. ' My body is yours to command.
My soul belongs to God, but you are its
keeper.”
He smiled triumphantly. Slowly he
turned on the balls of his feet and pointed
to me. Her eyes brightened. For an in¬
stant she crouched like a panther about to
spring. Then she turned to him again.
"Something tells me that somewhere
another holds my heart like a burning
pearl between his hands. Master,” she
wailed.
"This is he,” Lessman asserted.
Her face changed. She moved toward
316 WEIRD TALES
me slowly, her rounded arms extended.
I prayed. God, how I prayed! The
world danced before my eyes. Some¬
thing was happening. My very soul was
being torn from its moorings. She pressed
her lips to mine. I attempted to push
her from me—to shriek for help. I was
unable to move, to utter a sound.
Before me the burning eyes of Lessman
seared into my brain. Something seemed
to tell me that I was not myself—that I
was some one else—some one who had
known and loved this girl in the dim
past. . . . Then consciousness left me.
3. The Awakening
returned to consciousness with a
start. I was lying on a cot in a bleak,
unfurnished room. The sun was shining
through the uncurtained window. The
beetle-browed man I had seen in the gar¬
den at the time of my entrance was sitting
on a broken chair close to the foot of the
bed regarding me with an idiotic grin.
For an instant I lay there trying to col¬
lect my thoughts. Then recollection
swept over me. The remembrance of that
meeting in the doctor’s office—every¬
thing—came to me with a rush. I swung
my feet to the floor and rose unsteadily.
The man with the beetle brow gave a
peculiar, guttural cry and took to his
heels, slamming the door behind him.
Unconsciously I swept my hand across
my chin. My face was covered with a
day’s growth of stubble. Yet I had vis¬
ited the barber just before driving to
Lessman’s. I glanced down at my wrist
watch. It had stopped. The thought
flashed across my mind that I had slept
the clock around. I felt groggy and tired.
My brain declined to function. For an
instant the room swam before my eyes.
Was I dreaming? No.
I wondered if I was a prisoner. Sum¬
moning all of my will-power I staggered
to the door through which the shaggy-
haired man had retreated. It was un¬
locked. I stepped out into the hallway.
Unlike the lavishly furnished room
where I had met Doctor Lessman, the
hall was unfurnished and bare. Cobwebs
hung from the ceiling; the corners were
festooned with them. The floor was cov¬
ered with dust. The paper was mildewed
and torn. On either side the doors were
open. I noted that none of the apart¬
ments were furnished. All bore the same
evidence of desertion that the hall
showed.
I was on the second floor. That much
was apparent. I dragged my weary body
around the comer and came upon a stair¬
way leading downward. I descended,
finally emerging upon the lower level al¬
most in front of Lessman’s office. The
door was open. I entered.
The saturnine physician was seated be¬
side the table smoking, a book between
his fingers. He turned slowly at my ap¬
proach, his eyes gazing into vacancy.
Then recognition swept over him and he
gave me a slight nod.
"You are—yes, you are Cope,” he said
slowly. "Sit down. What do you want?”
"My freedom,” I answered bitterly.
He raised his arched eyebrows ques-
tioningly.
"My dear man, you are free to go
whenever you choose," he answered al¬
most irritably. "You came here as a vol¬
untary patient and asked for treatment.
"Patient? Treatment?” I ejaculated.
"What do you mean?”
"Just what I say,” he responded. "Your
bill is paid a month in advance. Natural¬
ly, I will not refund your money, although
I do not care to hold you against your
will.”
Again the room swam before my eyes.
Was I insane? Was the whole horrible
affair only the hallucination of a disor¬
dered mind? Had I dreamed of the beat-
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
ing he had inflicted upon the girl, Meta?
Was the episode following my entrance
only a part of my delirium? I turned to
him appealingly.
My face must have reflected the con¬
dition of my mind. He pointed to the
door. I strode forward and, turning the
knob, looked out. Something—some
strange power—held me back. I tried to
break it. Impossible. Like a whipped
puppy, I turned back into the room once
more. My mind was as clear as a crystal.
I swear it. I realized that I was free to
go—that it was my duty to leave the
hellish place as soon as possible—that
I should bring the proper officers back
with me and search it from cellar to gar¬
ret. Yet I could not move. I could no
more cross that threshold than I could
fly.
The sweat burst out on my brow in
great beads. I turned to a chair and
dropped into it wearily. Lessman gazed
at me mockingly, a cynical smile hover¬
ing over his diabolic face. Opening a
drawer, he brought forth a printed blank
and passed it over to me.
"You must understand, Mr. Cope, that
even though your commitment is volun¬
tary, I must have something to show in
case of inquiry,” he said quietly. "Kindly
sign your name on the dotted line at the
bottom of the page.”
I picked up the pen he offered me.
Something seemed to grip my fingers. I
struggled against signing, but in vain. In
spite of myself I affixed my signature to
the document.
S everal days have passed since I wrote
the above. I am like an animal now.
My hair is matted and unkempt, my beard
tangled and uncombed. I spend most of
my waking hours in a sort of trance in
my bleak, unfurnished room which, it
appears, I share with the beetle-browed
man. He sleeps on the floor, curled up
317
like a dog. Sometimes I wonder if he
is Priestly Ogden. I have asked him sev¬
eral times, but he does not answer me.
He seems to be without the power of un¬
derstanding. He is an automaton. He
brings the food to our room and we wolf
it down like ravenous beasts without re¬
gard for the common decencies. I am al¬
most as wild and unkempt as he is. . . .
I have tried several times to leave this
accursed place. I am allowed the run of
the yard and there does not appear to be
*any guard over me. But whenever I ap¬
proach the gate something seems to drag
me back. I am bound here by invisible
chains.
I see little of Lessman and less of
Meta. I do not seem to be a prisoner,
yet, as I said before, I have not the will¬
power to leave. . . . The other day I
found this tablet of paper in one of the
rooms. Luckily my pencil was still in my
pocket. Lessman, passing by, noticed me
writing and gazed over my shoulder. He
chuckled, half to himself, but said noth¬
ing. Since he made no objection, I will
continue.
O f late I have been subject to dreams
—weird, horrible nightmares. They
frighten me. Let me explain. Yesterday
there was a funeral in the little cemetery
I have already described just at the edge
of this uncanny place. I watched them
from the window as they tenderly low¬
ered the coffin into its final resting-place.
Final resting-place! God, what a mock¬
ery! I wonder if it really was. I dreamed
about it last night. Ugh! How realistic
that dream was! I was in the burying-
ground with the beetle-browed man. We
were armed with spades. Lessman stood
close by and directed operations while
Meta held the lantern by which we
worked. We opened the grave and re¬
moved the body from the casket —a young
and good-looking man—then we refilled
318 WEIRD TALES
the grave and carried the cold form to
the house. It all seemed horribly real.
This morning when I woke up I was
tired and every muscle in my body ached
as if from some unaccustomed exercise.
I scarcely stirred from my bed all day.
I am beginning to wonder. . . .
No, I am not insane. Yet Lessman says
that I came here and asked him to treat
me. I must have been suffering from
amnesia, for I have no recollection of any¬
thing save what I have written here. I
know that I am as sane as I ever was
except for the hallucinations and the in¬
ability to obey my own will. But if I con¬
tinue to dream as I have been dreaming
I shall be a raving maniac before
long. . . .
I had another dream last night. God,
it was diabolical! I will try and de¬
scribe it. Lessman seemed to be calling
me. I leaped from my couch and hur¬
ried through the darkened corridors to
a huge room at the rear of the house. The
door was open and the place was bril¬
liantly lighted. Lessman, clad in sur¬
geon’s smock, was waiting for me. Meta
in her trim nurse's garb stood a little
way back. She smiled as I entered and
gave me a friendly nod.
The room was fitted up like the inte¬
rior of a hospital. In the center was an
operating-table. There were vials and
retorts and shelves filled with bottles and
boxes and several cases of bright instru¬
ments. To one side was a door. Less¬
man commanded me to open it. His
will was mine. A draft of cold air greet¬
ed me as I stepped inside. It was like an
ice-house, only the air was dead and
moldy. Once I was inside a morgue. It
was the same—there was a feeling of
deadness even in the atmosphere.
He turned on an electric light. It was
a morgue. On marble slabs lay several
bodies in their grave clothes. Nearest
the door was the young man I had
dreamed of stealing from the grave the
night before. At Lessman’s command I
picked the cold form up in my arms and
carried it to the outer room and laid it
on a leather-covered couch.
As I straightened up I caught a glimpse
of Lessman’s eyes. They gazed through
me like twin X-Rays. I heard his voice
calling to me as from a great distance,
telling me to separate myself from my
body. Then came a feeling of dissolu¬
tion. Time after time I seemed to be fall¬
ing through space—falling—falling—
falling. I would catch myself with a
jerk, standing in another part of the
room, but my body was in front of Less¬
man. I was puzzled. Always, as I have
said, just as my soul seemed to be leaving
my body, something would snap and I
would find myself gazing into Lessman’s
eyes.
"I can’t do it tonight,” I heard him
mutter to Meta. "It is not the subject’s
fault, however, but my own. For some
reason I am unable to concentrate. It
will have to be you again.”
My last recollection was of hearing
Meta sobbing.
I awoke again with the same feeling of
lassitude and inertia.
G reat God above! It was not a
dream. Everything is clear to me
now. I have the satisfaction of know¬
ing, however, that I am not insane. In
prowling through the house today I
chanced to find the door of the operating-
room, or laboratory, open. I entered. The
place was unoccupied. The interior was
just as it had appeared to me in my vis¬
ion, dream, or whatever it was. Across
the room was the door opening into the
little morgue. I knew that inside lay the
bodies of the dead. I moved toward it
and had my hand on the knob when I
heard the voices of Lessman and Meta
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
in the office. I darted out and was half¬
way up the stairs when they appeared.
What is this charnel-house? What is
the ghastly plot in which I appear to be
one of the central figures?
4. A Night of Horror
Y MIND is in a haze as I write these
lines. Something has happened to
me—something so weird, so unbelievable
that I can scarce believe it myself. I am
not myself! I am some one else! I am
the dead man who was buried in the lit¬
tle cemetery adjoining this foul place and
whose cold, cold clay Jake—Lessman and
Meta call the beetle-browed man Jake—
and I disinterred. And yet I am—I must
be—Carter Cope. I think as Carter Cope.
My actions are those of Carter Cope. . . .
God! It is awful! There is no one to
whom I can talk. I must write or my al¬
ready tottering mind will break entirely.
I say that I am Carter Cope and yet
that I am some one else. The body of
Carter Cope lies in the little morgue in
the rear of Doctor Lessman's laboratory.
I have seen it with my own eyes. Yet I
am Carter Cope. I am here. But is this
I? Where will I commence on this chap¬
ter?
Last night I heard the voice of Less¬
man calling me again. Yet there was no
voice save in my own mind. It must have
been the thought waves from his marvel¬
lous brain beating against my subcon¬
sciousness. I rose from my lowly cot and
obeyed his command. He and Meta—
curse their foul souls!—were in the lab¬
oratory. She was clad in some sort of
thin, transparent material through which
every curve of her beautiful, sensuous
body showed. As I entered she gazed at
me with a look of indescribable longing.
Her blood-red lips were half parted over
her pearly teeth; her wonderful eyes were
filled with languorous passion. She took
a step toward me, her soft, white hands
319
extended beguilingly, her rounded breasts
rising and falling with each breath. Less¬
man turned and waved her back to the
couch on which she had been half re¬
clining. Lessman owns me. ... He owns
me body and soul. I am his to command.
I know this now. I desired this woman,
yet I made no movement toward her be¬
cause he willed otherwise. At his com¬
mand I turned away from this rare crea¬
ture of flesh and blood to the door of the
little morgue and staggered forth with the
stiff, frozen body of the young man
whom I have already mentioned. I
placed it on the operating-table, then
looked at my master—at Lessman—in¬
quiringly.
"My experiments with you have not
been altogether successful,” he told me
in his calm, low voice. "Somewhere,
deep in your sub-conscious mind, your
will is battling against that which I am
striving to do. In order to make my ex¬
periment a success you must be complai¬
sant.
"I am, my friend, attempting to change
the law laid down by the Creator of all
things. I am attempting the transference
of the soul. Think of it! For those who
know my secret there will be no such
thing as death—only a moving on from
one shape to another. When man’s body
wears out he need only discard it and
assume another and so continue on and
on to the end of time.
"Science, my friend, has shown us that
life—the soul—the essence of being—
weighs only the infinitesimal part of an
ounce. Yet without it we cease to be.
The young man whose carnal shell lies
before you weighs practically as much as
he ever did. The same framework of
bones supports his flesh. Yet he is noth¬
ing—a mere clod. Why? Because the
thing we call life is missing. It is that
spark which, with your help, I propose
to give him for the time being.
320 WEIRD TALES
"Time after time I have succeeded with
the assistance of Meta, but never with
another. Look at her, my friend. Is she
not beautiful? She is yours if you but
give me your aid. Allow your sub-con¬
scious mind to lie dormant for an instant
until I catch your soul. Will you do it?
The prize is well worth winning.”
Fool! Fool that I was! Did I not know
that his long harangue was merely to
compose my soul so that it would be
more pliable in his hands? Did I not
know that Meta was but the bait to draw
me into the trap? I caught a little glimpse
of her. She smiled at me. Something
within me snapped. . . .
I was a vapor—a thin, transparent, fog¬
like vapor. My body—the body of Car¬
ter Cope—lay sprawled on the floor in
the middle of the room while I—that
is, my aura—floated, wraith-like, above
it. Lessman bent forward, his eyes glit¬
tering like twin fires of hell, his arms
outstretched toward me.
I could think. My brain was clear. I
realized everything that was going on,
yet I was powerless to resist my master’s
call. His voice was calling to me, or¬
dering me to enter the body of the dead
man on the operating-table. I made no
struggle now. I was too far gone to fight
his commands.
Blackness . . . Egyptian darkness . . .
the darkness of the infernal regions. And
cold—the chill iciness of death ... the
arctic cold of dead, frozen flesh. . . .
I felt a thril’ of life pound through
my veins. Then came a sensation of de¬
lightful warmth. I pulled myself erect.
As true as there is a God in Heaven, I
was the dead man. Yet I was not dead.
I was alive.
My own discarded body, the body of
Carter Cope, lay like a cast-off garment
before me. I almost smiled as I noted a
tiny rent in the leg of the trousers where
I had tom it on a bramble the day be¬
fore. The clothes I now wore were new
—the grave clothes of the boy who had
just been buried.
Lessman turned to Meta. His voice
trembled with excitement as he addressed
her.
"Success! Success at last!” he exclaimed
triumphantly. "This, then, is the begin¬
ning of the end of my long years of
labor.”
He leaned forward and whispered
something in her ear. She drew back
with a little gesture of disgust. He
jerked the whip from beneath his smock
and struck her across the shoulders. With
the first blow she dropped on her knees
before him, her arms extended, her face
upturned. In her eyes was a look of
esthetic bliss.
The wraith-like garment dropped from
her rounded shoulders, across which the
cruel whip raised a criss-cross of welts.
The red blood trickled from them in tiny
streams over the smooth, white flesh.
"More! More!” she begged in a soft,
low voice. "I am Laela, priestess of Isis.
Was I wrong when I loved, even though
I had taken the vow of celibacy? Tell me,
oh High Priest, ere you scourge me again.”
He hurled her from him as if she was
unclean. She rose slowly to her feet and
drew her garment over her bleeding
shoulders. She took a step toward him,
her arms outstretched.
"Scourge me, my master,” she wailed.
"But take me not away from my be¬
loved.”
He struck her again. She turned to
me. Something—I know not what it was
—passed over me. She was calling me.
Yet she made no sound. I advanced to¬
ward her. She met me. For an instant
we stood there facing each other. I
looked into her wonderful eyes. Then
our lips met in one long, long kiss.
A feeling of bliss swept over me.
Words can not describe it. I glanced
W. T.—2
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
over Meta’s shoulder. Lessman’s eyes
were upon me. They bored through me.
My temporal body seemed to disappear,
leaving my soul alone to meet that of
Meta. . . .
Again a feeling of nothingness swept
over me. Then came a strange buoy¬
ancy. . . .
I was Meta Varietta!
Before me stood the dead man—not
dead, but pulsating with life. His arms
were about me. He clasped me to him,
drawing me so close that my face was
pressed against his shoulder.
I was two beings—myself and Meta.
How can I explain it? I was Meta
Vanetta. But was Meta Carter Cope?
Impossible! I was still Carter Cope. Yet
the body of Carter Cope lay on the floor
where I had left it when I entered the
shell of the man who stood before me.
Upon his hands was blood—blood from
the reeking gashes made by the whip on
the shoulders of Meta.
Lessman’s eyes! Again that feeling of
oblivion—or nothingness—swept over
me. I was drifting . . . drifting through
space . . . drifting. . . .
I awoke. I was leaning against the
wall swaying diaily. Meta stood on the
other side of the room. She was leaning
forward, her eyes gazing hungrily at me,
her white arms extended toward me be¬
seechingly.
"Beloved!” I heard her call.
Then nothingness again.
Great God! I can not understand it.
When I awoke I was lying on my bed
of straw. Jake, the beetle-browed man,
sat up when he heard me stir and gazed
at me, frightened. Then he ran from the
room. His eyes were wide with terror.
There is no mirror by which I can con¬
firm my thoughts. But I know that I am
not Carter Cope! 1 am the dead man we
took from the grave! Jake knows it. That
is why he runs away from me.
W. T—3
321
My hands are covered with blood—
Meta’s blood!
5. Dance of the Dead
T wo days have passed since I made
my last entry in this account of my
life here in this diabolical House of the
Living Dead. The House of the Living
Dead! What a title that would be for a
story! But the author would be locked
up for the remainder of his life in some
asylum. No one would believe that it
was anything but the wanderings of a
diseased mind.
Lessman is treating me better now since
his experiment with me proved a success.
I have been taken away from the room
which I shared jointly with Jake and I
am now lodged in an apartment on the
first floor. Here there are all of the con¬
veniences of modern life save one—a
razor. There is a bathtub. I can keep
myself clean. And, too, I have been given
fresh linen. Lessman insists, however,
that I allow my beard to grow and that
my hair remain uncut. He probably fig¬
ures that a tangled mass of whiskers and
long, dark hair will prove an effectual
disguise should any one who knows me
see me from the road. And he is right.
There is a mirror in the room I now oc¬
cupy. I looked into it yesterday and al¬
most failed to recognize myself in the
tall, gaunt, bewhiskered man who gazed
out at me.
I see a great deal of Meta now. Less¬
man is a devil incarnate. I believe that
he has sold himself to the ruler of Hell.
He knows that I love Meta and that I can
not oppose his will as long as he allows
us to mingle together. And I—I, poor
fool—I know that Meta is but his tool.
She knows it, too. She loves me, but yet
she obeys his every command. Daily,
hourly, I feel my will-power growing
weaker and weaker. The brain of Doctor
322 WEIRD TALES
Darius Lessman is my brain. I can not
think for myself when he wills otherwise.
That is why this screed is so rambling
and incoherent. It is only when he wills
it that I have the inclination to bestir
myself. Time passes and I do not know
it. I do not even know what day of the
month this is. I do not care.
I wonder why Lessman allows me to
continue my writing? Some one is liable
to find this scrawl. He does not seem to
worry about it, however. Meta believes
that he knows that this outpouring of my
soul is the link which binds me to sanity
—the safety valve which keeps me from
growing totally demented. Perhaps she
is right. Lessman is a wonderful man.
I am growing to like him more and more,
devil though he is.
I have had several long talks with
Meta. She is one woman in a million.
She is more—much more—subservient to
Lessman’s will than I am. For some rea¬
son when we are together he withdraws
his power over us and allows us to think
for ourselves. . . . But does he? Or do
we just think that such is the case? Her
mind is a blank on many things which
have happened. She has no recollection
of her constant assertions when under the
influence of Lessman’s whip that she is
the reincarnation of some one—some
long-dead priestess of some strange Egyp¬
tian cult. Yet she says that she always
comes out of such spells feeling buoyant
and light-hearted. She says that she suf¬
fers no pain when the cruel lash cuts into
her flesh, but, on the contrary, each blow
fills her with a strange, uncontrollable
love for her tormenter. Not a sexual pas¬
sion, but, rather, the love of a neophyte
for the Creator of all things. As a mat¬
ter of experiment, she has asked me to
beat her; on several occasions I have tried
to inflict bodily pain upon her, but the
effect is different from when Lessman
strikes her. Even a faint blow from my
hand hurts her and causes her to shrink
away from me.
She has no recollection of any other
life than that with Lessman. She has
been with him so long that she is almost
a part of him. She does not know how
old she is, nor has she any memory of a
childhood. She reads and writes with
ease and is an accomplished musician.
Yet she says that she never attended
school and does not know where she
gained her accomplishments.
She believes that Lessman is two be¬
ings—that he has divided his soul and
that half of it occupies her body. She
believes that she is very old. Sometimes,
she says, she has hazy recollections of a
distant country—of another life in the
midst of lotus flowers and robed priests
and priestesses. She has never been in
Egypt, yet she is certain that it is of Egypt
that she dreams. She believes that she
is occupying the temporal body of some
one else, but that her soul is as old as
time itself.
Who is Darius Lessman? Meta does
not know. Within his skull is concen¬
trated the wisdom of the ages. His most
cherished possessions, she says, are two
mummy-cases; in one of them is the mum¬
mified body of a priestess of Isis and in
the other that of a priest of that strange
Egyptian cult of a bygone day. He keeps
them under lock and key in a vault. Meta
believes that he is the reincarnation of
that priest and that she is the priestess.
Who knows?
M eta and I have twice attempted to
escape from this weird and unholy
place. On both occasions we have gotten
as far as the gate, yet we could not pass
through it. Lessman’s spell is too strong
for us to break.
Lessman rarely shows himself by day.
He is a denizen of the darkness. I pic¬
ture him in my mind’s eye as consorting
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
with the bats and owls and other inhabit¬
ants of the night. It is only at night that
we see him, save on rare occasions. Meta
says that he can work his hellish incanta¬
tions better after sundown. . . .
This afternoon we searched the house
for him. He was neither within nor on
the grounds. We even peered into the
little morgue. The palatial office was un¬
occupied. The door to the little vault
was open and I looked within. The two
sarcophagi leaned against the wall. I
turned away and, an instant later, Less-
man stepped through the door. Yet I am
willing to swear that, save for the two
mummy-cases, the vault was bare. I was
too much astounded for words. Nor did
he make any explanation.
Later I discussed the matter with Meta.
She believes that Lessman has the power
to project himself into the body of the
mummy and that he takes such rest as
he may need in that manner. If so, where
does he leave his mortal body? Yet she
can not be wrong. We have searched
the house and have found no bedchamber
for him. Meta says that she has no recol¬
lection of ever seeing him asleep. Where
does he disappear to during the day un¬
less it is within the mummy-case? . . .
M ore horror! A dance of the dead!
Lessman is succeeding far beyond
his wildest dreams. He says that I was
the turning-point in his experiments.
Last night he ordered Jake and me to
bring from the morgue the three bodies
that it contained. There was the young
man whose shape I had assumed before
and a young and beautiful girl. There
was also a young, fair-haired man with
throat cut from ear to ear. Into these
shells he transferred the souls of Meta,
Jake and myself. Then to the music of a
radio—to the music of a dance orchestra
playing in the dining-room of one of
New York’s finest hotels—we, the dead.
323
held hellish jubilee. For hours we danced
and cavorted while our own bodies lay
sprawled, like discarded garments, on the
floor before us. God! It is horrible to
think of it now in the clear, bright light
of noonday. Last night it was different
Meta assumed the body of the girl, I
that of the young man we had stolen
from the cemetery, while Jake took on the
temporal form of the man with the
slashed throat.
It is of Jake and the other that I would
write. That Jake is Priestly Ogden is now
a certainty. He told me so himself while
the orchestra rested between dances in
that far-away station in New York. Yet
his story is so strange, so unbelievable,
that I scarce know how to tell it.
Lessman killed him. The slash across
his throat was made by a razor which tore
through windpipe and jugular. Think
of it! A man with his throat cut from
ear to ear dancing, cavorting, gamboling
to the strains of a modem orchestra play¬
ing "Betty Coed.” An orchestra whose
music was brought to us through the air
on the invisible waves of sound.
Lessman enticed him to this place. The
girl was here—the girl whose form Meta
had assumed. In driving past the house
Ogden noticed her in the yard and, stop¬
ping, engaged her in conversation. He
had fallen in love at sight. Lessman, ap¬
pearing from nowhere, had invited him
to return. That is how he came by the
slip of paper bearing Lessman’s name.
He had returned the next day. Later
when he was under Lessman’s spell he
had found that he was in love with a
dead woman—a girl who had been filched
from the grave six months before and
whose shell sheltered the soul of Meta.
Within the morgue lay the body of
Jake. Night after night Lessman worked
with Ogden in an effort to force his soul
into the cold clay but without success.
In a fit of anger he had killed his victim.
324 WEIRD TALES
Then, as Ogden’s soul was leaving its
shell, Lessman had captured it and con¬
fined it inside the body of Jake, the half¬
wit. All this he told me, and more, as
we stood there waiting for the orchestra
to strike up another tune. Yes, it is hor¬
rible—too horrible to mention—now that
I am temporarily out from under the spell
of the master mind. But last night it was
different.
I essman was pleased with the success
>of last night’s experiment. He has
a treat in store for us tonight, he says. He
told us that last night after we had shed
the bodies of the dead and had assumed
our own shapes—told us after we had
carried the cold, stark bodies back into
the gloomy morgue.
A crew of workmen erected a tomb¬
stone over the grave of the young
man whose body we stole from the ceme¬
tery. His name is John Reid. He is
twenty-six years of age. It is graven on
the marble slab.
If they only knew the truth! . . .
6. The Stolen Soul
1 MUST write. If I do not I shall go
mad. Already I feel my reason totter¬
ing. Last night I helped Lessman steal
a soul. In the eyes of God and man I
am as much a criminal as he is. Yet
am I? What I did was at his dictation.
I have no will of my own. It would
make a pretty case for the courts—some¬
thing for the learned judges and lawyers
to spout and rave about until doomsday.
How can I describe what we did? I
know so little of psychology, of philoso¬
phy, of theology. It is hard for me to
write intelligently. Suffice to say that it
is Lessman’s theory—this much do I un¬
derstand—that the doctrine of reincarna¬
tion is correct. Souls, he says, never die.
but go on and on, changing the old bodies
for new as speedily as the ancient shell
is worn out. He believes that there are
just as many people in the world now as
there were in the beginning—no more
and no less. He says that there is no such
thing as nothingness. Matter dies, decays
and returns to the earth from which it
came. The globe on which we live weighs
just as much as it did when it was creat¬
ed. A single ounce more would throw
it out of balance; a single ounce less
would do the same thing. Just as water
evaporates, congeals and returns to the
earth in the form of hail and snow and
rain, so, he believes, do souls leave one
shell and return to occupy another while
the body returns to dust.
He would change the process laid down
by the Creator. It is his idea that the soul
can go on and on in a different way—by
changing its abiding-place before that
strange thing called death occurs. He
can extract the soul and mold it to his
own needs, but in his opinion it must
always have a dwelling-place. Until such
a dwelling-place is found the soul is
doomed to wander through space, a
wraith, or, as we term it, a gho
I ast night we took a holiday—the holi-
* day of the dead. From some un¬
known source Lessman obtained an auto¬
mobile. Into it he loaded all of us. But
was it we who occupied the seats? I do
not know. My own soul occupied the
shell of John Reid. Jake was in his own
form, but I know, now, that he is Priest¬
ly Ogden. Meta’s ego was transferred
into the body of Ogden’s sweetheart. The
dead girl’s name was Nona Metzgar, she
has told us. Why did he not allow us to
use our own earthly shapes? I mustered
up courage enough to ask him. He said
that it was to insure our safety in case
we were seen. In other words, Jake and
Nona and young Reid were all known to
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
be dead. Who, then, would believe the
story of any one who claimed to have
seen this array of occupants of the grave
in the act of performing their ghoulish
work?
He laid before us new clothing in
which we arrayed our bodies. He himself
assumed the shell of Priestly Ogden and
took the wheel. The horrible gash in his
throat showed just above the collar of his
shirt. Ugh! I shudder even now as I
think about it. Imagine a man with throat
cut from ear to ear driving a car filled
with living dead men and women!
At the edge of a town a dozen or more
miles away was a burying-ground. Here
we stopped. Lessman, who had evidently
posted himself in advance, led the way
through the darkness straight to the new¬
ly-made grave. Jake and I followed with
the shovels while Meta brought up in the
rear with a lantern. The rain was falling
in a steady drizzle; had we not been num¬
bered among the dead ourselves the work
of disinterring the coffin would have been
a dismal one.
We had gotten little more than started
when a sound in the bushes brought us
to a sudden halt. An instant later half a
dozen men dashed out of the under¬
growth. At Lessman’s command we took
to our heels. They shouted an order at
us. Then, when we did not stop, they
fired a volley. The range was close and
they could not miss. A dozen bullets
went through our dead flesh. But of
what avail is it to shoot leaden bullets
into the carcass of a man who is already
dead? We laughed at the thought of it.
The hellishness of our mirth caused
them to stop. One of them was nearly
atop of us. At the sound of our laughter
he turned the beam of his flashlight upon
us. It struck Lessman fairly in the face.
They got one look at the grisly gash in
his throat. They dropped their arms and
325
took to their heels while we returned to
our car and made our escape.
We drove through the rain another
dozen miles or more, finally coming to
another large cemetery. This time, how¬
ever, Lessman did not stop at the edge of
the grounds, but drove straight through
the gate and up one of the graveled roads
which curved through the trees and neat¬
ly trimmed foliage. Five minutes later
we were in front of a large mausoleum.
For an instant he probed at the lock; then
the barred doors opened and we entered.
There were a dozen coffins in the
niches. He turned to the nearest of them
and commanded Jake to pry it open with
his spade. The half-wit obeyed. An in¬
stant later we were gazing down at the
still, cold face of a man of middle age.
Dawn was not far away, so we were
forced to work fast. It took Lessman
but an instant to project his soul—or
ego, if you wish—from the form of the
murdered Priestly Ogden to that of the
man in the coffin. An instant later the
latter climbed from his narrow cot, the
life-blood flowing through his veins.
At Lessman’s command we picked up
the body of Priestly Ogden and placed it
in the coffin. Then we stole forth into
the clean outside air again.
Once more we were fated to be inter¬
rupted. We were about to enter the car
when the watchman came hurrying around
the comer of the huge vault. He caught
a glimpse of the car and, at the same
time, the open doors of the mausoleum,
and shouted a command to us to halt.
We paid no attention to his order. He
turned the beam of his lantern on us just
as the man in the other cemetery had
done.
As the light struck Lessman squarely in
the face the startled watchman uttered a
cry of horror. What must have been his
astonishment at seeing a man whom he
326 WEIRD TALES
had assisted in placing in the tomb only
a few days before sitting at the wheel of
a car in front of his last resting-place!
Lessman laughed—a hellish, diabolical
chuckle. The man turned and fled. We
heard him scrambling through the bushes
and undergrowth, howling in terror.
Lessman switched on the ignition and, an
hour later, we were bade inside our own
bodies again.
I N THE beginning of this chapter I
stated that I had helped Lessman steal
a soul. Let me explain.
Dawn was just breaking when wre ar¬
rived at the place we called home—the
House of the Living Dead. Lessman sent
Jake somewhere with the car and, a mo¬
ment later, assumed his own shape.
It was shortly before eight o’clock
when a man appeared at the door—a tall,
heavy-set individual, well dressed and
prosperous-looking. Lessman had evi¬
dently been expecting the visitor; he hast¬
ily told me what to do, and now I, in the
role of butler, answered the knock and
ushered the man into the office.
I did not see what passed between the
doctor and his visitor. I only know that,
fifteen minutes after he had entered the
house, Lessman summoned me again to as¬
sist him, this time in carrying the stranger
into the laboratory. The poor devil was
not dead. His brain was apparently nor¬
mal, but every faculty was paralyzed just
as mine had been that first time I met
Lessman. There was a look of appeal in
his eyes as I entered the room. Evidently
he thought that he might expect some
help from me. But so strong is the power
of Darius Lessman over me that I paid
no heed to him.
Once in the laboratory Lessman worked
fast. For an instant only he confronted
the other. Slowly the spirit left the body
and, hovering for an instant in midair,
entered the shell of the middle-aged man
we had stolen from the mausoleum.
Lessman turned to me, a look of tri¬
umph on his saturnine countenance.
"You can see, now, why I wanted the
body,” he said with the air of a profes¬
sor demonstrating to his class. "The soul,
my friend, must have a resting-place or
else be doomed to wander forever over
the face of the earth. Now, I want to
borrow the body of this man for a day
or two. Why? Because I must make a
trip to the city. I need money with which
to carry on my work here—money and
other things. This man is wealthy. Per¬
haps, while I am occupying his shell, I
will do things without the law. He has
influence. Later, when I am through
with it, I will transfer his soul back to its
rightful resting-place, and allow him to
answer for the things that I have done—
for the liberties I have taken. But, first,
I will make his mind a blank insofar as
the happenings here are concerned. Now
do you understand?”
I shook my head dumbly, still not un¬
derstanding.
As one sheds an old coat, so did Less¬
man shed his own form and enter the
shell of the stranger. He stood erect and
drew a great breath into his lungs.
"Eureka! The world is mine!” he ex¬
claimed.
L essman has just spoken to me as I
* wrote the above.
"Write 'Finis’ to your screed,” he
commanded. "Do you think that I have
thus allowed you to put your thoughts
on paper without having a definite pur¬
pose in mind? I am in a hurry. So hasten
your work.”
This, then, is my last line. I hastily
subscribe myself,
Carter Cope.
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
7. Rider Meets Lessman
R ider’s face wore a strange, far-away
. look as he laid the weird manuscript
on the desk. Again he slowly filled and
lighted his pipe, so absorbed in his
thoughts that the match flame singed his
fingers before he noticed what he was do¬
ing. He dropped the burning taper with
an oath and picked up the newspaper
clipping which had accompanied Carter
Cope’s communication.
MYSTERIOUS HAPPENINGS
IN OAKWOOD CEMETERY!
Body of Prominent Man Stolen From Tomb—Body
of Suicide Is Substituted—Caretaker Tells
of Seeing Dead Man in Car
The body of Amos Hoskins, prominent phi¬
lanthropist, was stolen from the mausoleum at
Oakwood cemetery Monday night and in its place
was substituted the body of a young man named
Priestly Ogden, who has been missing from home
for the past several months and who now, judg¬
ing from the condition of the body, has beat
found to have committed suicide.
Jabez Heckwood, the cemetery caretaker, who
lives in a small house just inside the grounds, was
aroused from his slumber about 3 o’clock in the
morning by the sound of a car driven into the
grounds. Hastily dressing, he armed himself with
a revolver and flashlight and hurried to the maus¬
oleum in front of which, he noted, the car had
stopped.
He was just in time to see four persons—three
men and one woman—hurrying from the mauso¬
leum to the car. He shouted at them to halt, at the
same time pointing his flashlight in their direc-
The leader of the party of four, according to
Caretaker Heckwood, was Amos Hoskins.
In view of the fact that Mr. Heckwood had,
only two days earlier, assisted in placing the body
of Mr. Hoskins—who died Thursday at his home,
1739 South Masfield St.—in the tomb, it is need¬
less to state that he was badly frightened. Drop¬
ping flashlight and gun, he hurried to his home,
where he telephoned to cemetery officials and
members of the Hoskins family.
Upon arrival at the cemetery, the party found
that the lock of the mausoleum had been picked
and the body of Mr. Hoskins removed. In the
casket lay the body of a young man whose throat
was cut from ear to ear. From official descrip¬
tions, the police identified him as Priestly Ogden,
4519 Lenroot Ave., who disappeared from home
several months ago. Identification was later com¬
pleted by distant relatives.
Ogden was, without doubt, a suicide.
The police are investigating. The family of
Mr. Hoskins has offered a reward of $5,000 for
information leading to the recovery of the body
and conviction of the ghouls.
327
For an instant Rider sat in silence.
Then he reached for the telephone, lifted
the receiver and gave a number.
"Lincoln Tavern?” he inquired. Then:
"I would like to speak to Mr. John Har¬
per.”
An instant later the connection was
made. As the voice of Harper came boom¬
ing over the wire, Rider spoke again.
"Rider speaking,” he said tersely. ”1
am accepting your commission. I visit
Lessman tomorrow morning.”
He replaced the receiver on the hook,
his face again wearing the strange, far¬
away expression.
D awn was still two hours away when
Rider, his car parked a quarter of a
mile away, broke through the tangle of
underbrush which surrounded the House
of the Living Dead and, dodging fur¬
tively from shadow to shadow, finally
reached his objective.
There was a light in one of the rooms
in the rear of the house. He crept closer
to the windows and attempted to listen.
Only silence greeted his ears. The shades
were tightly drawn, leaving not a crack
through which he could peer.
Why had he told John Harper a false¬
hood? Why had he told the attorney that
he would visit Lessman in the morning,
only to hasten his trip by a do2en hours?
He scarcely knew, himself. Asa Rider
was a man who believed in hunches.
Something — some vague, indescribable
sixth sense—had warned him of danger.
He had made hasty inquiries.
John Harper had disappeared from his
home twenty-four hours before. He had
left no word where he was going, nor
had cautious inquiries at the lawyer’s of¬
fice elicited any information.
Were John Harper and Doctor Darius
Lessman one and the same? Was John
Harper the man who had appeared at
Lessman’s house of horror in the early
328 WEIRD TALES
hours of the morning? Was it his soul
which now reposed in the dead body of
Amos Hoskins while Lessman masquer¬
aded in his stolen body? Had Lessman
given him the weird, unbelievable man¬
uscript written by Carter Cope in an effort
to trap him? Rider believed that he had.
But why? The pseudo-lawyer had an¬
swered the question himself when he had
told Rider that he had selected him for
the dangerous task of seeking Carter Cope
because there was none to mourn him
should he, like Cope, disappear from the
haunts of men.
In the rear of the house was a tiny lean-
to. Above it a window. Cope had stated
that the upper floor was untenanted save
for the man, Jake, and he was, in all prob¬
ability, with the others in the lighted
room.
Removing his shoes, Rider climbed the
latticework to the roof of the little out¬
building. The window was unlocked.
He raised it slightly and allowed the
beam of his flashlight to play over the
bare, untenanted room. An instant later
he was inside.
He could hear the subdued sound of
conversation now. He reached for his
revolver. Then he recalled the statement
made by Carter Cope. Leaden bullets
had no effect on men and women who
were already dead. With a shrug of his
shoulders, he replaced the weapon in his
pocket and, cautiously opening the door,
entered the long, unlighted hall.
The door of the room in the rear of
the house was open. He dodged down
the stairs, halting for an instant in front
of the office Carter Cope had described.
The door was ajar, the room in darkness.
He dodged inside and turned the beam
of his flashlight here and there over the
palatial interior. A second door to the
left attracted his attention. It, too, was
unlocked. He pulled it open and allowed
the ray from his lamp to dissipate the
darkness.
The little room was vacant save for
two Egyptian mummy-cases leaning
against the wall.
He heard the sound of a footstep be¬
hind him. He turned but too late. A
dozen electric lights flashed into life as
some one pressed the switch.
John Harper stood before him.
F or an instant the attorney said noth¬
ing. Then he took a step forward, a
smile of recognition upon his face.
"Ah, I see that you outguessed me."
he chuckled. "You are right, Mr. Rider,
I am Lessman—Lessman in the shell of
John Harper. Luckily something—some
sixth sense—called me into this room; else
you might have escaped.”
He motioned to a chair, seating himself
on the opposite side of the table. For an
instant Rider hesitated. Then he, too,
seated himself.
Lessman rolled a cigarette.
"As you deduced, Rider—you see I am
able to read your mind to a certain extent
—I needed another man to experiment
with. I wanted a clean-cut, healthy speci¬
men—a man whose habits were such that
he appeared and disappeared frequently
and whose relatives would make no great
fuss if he never returned.”
He chuckled.
"John Harper wrote several checks to¬
day. In fact, practically all of his avail¬
able cash is now in my hands. I have
money enough now to complete my ex¬
periments. Tomorrow Harper will re¬
turn to his usual haunts. The past forty-
eight hours will be a blank to him. He
will put it down to temporary amnesia,
pocket his loss and say nothing. Mean¬
while-”
He leaned forward. A feeling of in¬
ertia swept over the detective. He strug¬
gled against it in vain. He was paralyzed.
 THE HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD
His muscles refused to co-ordinate. The
eyes of the man on the opposite side of
the table were boring holes through him,
it seemed. His brain was clear, missing
not a single detail. He summoned all of
his will-power in an effort to resist the
other. . . .
In spite of the fact that he knew bul¬
lets would have no effect on the man who
sat before him, Rider had, as the strange
feeling of nothingness swept over him,
involuntarily reached for the revolver
which reposed in its leather holster be¬
neath his left arm. Now, as his hand
dropped, nerveless, his fingers accident¬
ally touched the tiny crucifix which hung,
suspended from a thin golden chain,
about his neck.
For an instant the hypnotic influence
of the master mind ceased. Rider felt
the lifeblood surge through his veins once
more. He leaped to his feet, his gnaw¬
ing fingers tearing at the buttons of his
shirt as he jerked the little cross from its
resting-place above his heart and held it
aloft.
Lessman screamed. He leaped to his
feet. The match which he had just
lighted and was about to apply to the end
of his cigarette dropped from his nerve¬
less fingers.
"The Cross! The Cross!” he screamed
hoarsely, staggering backward.
There was a flash. The lighted match,
falling into the wastepaper basket, had ig¬
nited it. Now, while the two men stood
facing each other, the flames crept to the
window hangings. An instant later the
room was an inferno.
Rider, fighting his way through the
smoke and fire, the tiny cross still held
aloft, fell in a little heap in the middle of
the yard. For five minutes he lay there
329
sucking the fresh night air into his tor¬
tured lungs.
From inside the house he heard
screams. Then silence.
The door opened. Lessman, stagger¬
ing under the weight of two mummy-
cases, dashed through the flame-encircled
doorway.
He hurled the cases from him. Then
he fell. He dragged himself to his feet
and, turning, re-entered the burning
building.
Through the smoke which poured out
of the roaring inferno drifted two white,
mist-like forms. For a moment they were
wafted here and there by the suction of
the flames. Then, fog-like, they settled
over the two mummy-cases. Lower and
lower they hovered until they covered the
cases like dew. Then, even as Rider, his
teeth chattering as if from the ague,
watched, the vapor disappeared within the
cases.
"Lessman and Meta,” he muttered in
an awed whisper. "Carter Cope was
right. Within the mummified forms of
that long-dead priest and priestess the
souls of those two fiends make their
home.”
Rider darted forward to drag the cases
farther away from the burning building,
but he was too late, for the roof crumbled,
and the blazing wall fell out onto the
mummy-cases, enveloping them in a sheet
of flame.
W ith the coming of morning near-by
residents, hurrying from the four
quarters of the landscape, raked through
the smoldering ruins. The remains of six
bodies were found, burned beyond recog¬
nition.
Of the House of the Living Dead not
even the two mummy-cases remained.
 Who Played With Time
By A. W. BERNAL
A strange weird-scientific tale of the fourth dimension and
a tragic journey into the past
P ERHAPS you recall the disappear¬
ance of Austin J. Brammas? Yes,
the scientist, the inventor. Remem¬
ber? It was on the evening of April 19,
1930, that he encountered his most un¬
believable fate, his incredible doom.
They say 1 killed him, murdered him in
cold blood. But I never. I never! But
they say I killed him and they put me here
because of it. How could I murder him?
He was my friend! We had known each
other since childhood, went to school
together. That is, we did until we gradu¬
ated from high school. He went on
through college while I worked here in
town. But after leaving college Austin
had his laboratory built just three short
blocks from my shop, and we renewed
our friendship. I suppose I was the only
real friend he had. He was a little eccen¬
tric in his ways, and people usually avoid
eccentric folks that aren’t famous, don’t
they?
Anyhow, Austin used to leave it to me
to make all the parts for any new inven¬
tion of his. And his inventions were new,
too! Why, the things he turned out would
have surprized the patent office officials,
and they’ve seen some mighty queer
machines.
Austin’s head was always full of
strange ideas. He’d develop some fan¬
tastic idea in his mind until it would re¬
sult in the creation of a bizarre theory.
330
Then he’d construct a machine to test the
theory.
But allow me to tell you my story,
won’t you? Let me convince you of my
innocence, please.
Listen to me and I’ll tell you the true
story of the death of Austin J. Brammas—•
tell you how he was mortally wounded by
the arrow of an unknown savage, in the
year of our Lord 1492.
For nearly a year before Austin’s death
he had been working on a new idea which
kept me busy making the odds and ends
he required. After I had finished the last
of the pieces for him he went into seclu¬
sion for some time. Then one day, the
day on which he was to meet his death,
he asked me to drop in at his laboratory
to see what he had been working on. As
soon as I could manage it, which was im¬
mediately, I closed shop and rushed over
to Austin’s place. Curiosity has always
been a failing of mine.
He was waiting for me in his little
living-room, a small cubicle containing a
gas-plate, three chairs, a couple of tiny
tables, and a bed; adjoining this place
was his laboratory, a vast room filled
with every type of apparatus a scientist
needs. As I closed the massive front
door behind me Austin greeted me with:
"What in the world kept you? You’ve
been at least five minutes.” His voice was
jubilant; he was in excellent spirits.
 THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH TIME
As I wrung his hands, I noticed with
increasing apprehension that my friend’s
usually boyish face was a bit thin and
drawn. His broad shoulders sagged as
though carrying a load. He rubbed a
greasy hand on his massive laboratory
apron, then vainly strove to brush his
long chestnut-colored hair away from his
eyes. All the while I eyed his six-foot
form in silent disapproval.
"Oh, I suppose I do look sort of all
in,” Austin declared, noting the expres¬
sion on my face. "But how can I eat or
sleep when I'm on the track of something
really big? Listen, my boy-”
"Whoa! First we have a bite to eat
and a little rest,” I interrupted. I knew
that when he began by boying me, he was
about to explain something to me. But I
wanted him to eat first. He worried me,
looking so pale and fatigued.
331
"All right,” he agreed, "I am a bit
hungry. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
While he relaxed in the one easy-chair
the room contained, I busied myself preJ
paring a hasty meal. During the repast I
avoided all subjects scientific, for fear
Austin would forget he was eating and
commence a discussion about some topic
relating to his latest creation.
After eating, while I cleared the table,
Brammas began with: "Tell me, what is
time?”
I laughed. "Well,” I replied, "I
know it’s what clocks tell, but, outside of
that, I can’t exactly explain what it is.”
"Nor can any one else! Professors may
use any amount of six-syllable words, but
when it comes to stating just what time
really is they’ll just sputter and say noth¬
ing. They can’t explain time because
there is no such thing as time.”
332 WEIRD TALES
"Surely, though,” I putin, "time is ex¬
istent. It—it—well, it just is, it has to
be!”
"Ah, there you are wrong, my boy.
Time is merely a name man has invented
to denote different phases of his life.
You say there is past, present and future,
do you not?”
"Yes.”
"I say there is the present, and nothing
but the present.”
"You’ll have to explain,” I said, light¬
ing a cigarette.
"Time, we’ll call it time for want of a
better word, time is like—well, like a
series of three rooms, all adjoining each
other, but the doors connecting them are
locked. In the center room are the things,
the creatures which make up our modem
age. This room is Today. The room on
the right is Yesterday; it contains the past.
The room on the left of Today is To¬
morrow. In it lies the future. We are
in the room of Today. We are moving,
we live. But the contents of the other two
rooms are also alive. Have we any right,
then, to say that because the other rooms
are behind and ahead of us they are not
existent? Just because we are unable to
open the doors and step into these rooms,
why is that sufficient reason to declare
them non-existent? We live in this room,
dinosaurs dwell in the other. Merely
because they are not in this room is no
proof that they are in the dead, forgotten
past, now is it? We live simultaneously,
the dinosaurs and you and I; but on ac¬
count of the locked doors between us we
think that there are no such creatures alive
today, do we not? Bah! For proof to sub¬
stantiate their statements, the fools will
say: 'Well, where are these things you
speak of; can you point out a few?’ Those
doubting idiots forget that their pitifully
incompetent senses are not to be relied
upon, and that they do not know quite
everything!
"I have studied the problem and have
reached a conclusion. By mathematics,
you understand, not by my eyes, I have
proved that the future and the past are
existing at this moment!”
2
I believed I saw a fallacy in his theory
—for theory I could only believe it
was; not able to believe that he had ac¬
tually proved such an incredible hypothe¬
sis. "But,” I said, "you are assuming that
there are three rooms where there is only
one. We are here on the identical spot
where a million years ago some long¬
necked what-you-may-call-it wallowed in
a patch of mud. According to your theory,
both of us are here at the same moment,
which is, of course, quite impossible.
You know very well that two solids can
not occupy the same space at the same
time. Therefore-”
My friend, whose face was once more
calm, interrupted me with: "And how do
you know we are solid, my boy?” He
laughed at the expression on my face and
continued. "You know, even we, with
our poor weak brains, can create a person
in our minds—one who seems to be a per¬
fectly rational being—by concentration.
And mightn’t this being think for him¬
self, although it is through the direction
of his creator’s brain? That is, when we
think of this fellow, we think of him as
doing something; say, for example, row¬
ing a boat. Now, perhaps this imaginary
entity thinks he is rowing around the lake
of his own accord, has a reason for doing
so that appears to be logical to him; yet it
is our thought all the time that is directing
him to do so.”
"But,” I put in, "when we cease think¬
ing of this fellow, why, he disappears.
Then, again, while this man is rowing his
boat, suppose we suddenly change our
thought. In a flash, he will probably be
 THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH TIME
walking down the street, or doing some
such thing that is in no way connected
with rowing. I never see humans act that
way.”
"You forget that the Brain which cre¬
ates us is infinitely more powerful than
our brains. And have you never heard
that if a group of strong minds concen¬
trate long and hard enough they can
materialize a living being? Of course that
is merely a theory, but mightn’t it have its
origin in actual fact? Many East Indians
would swear that such a thing could be
done.
"But the point is, maybe the imaginary
man is just as solid as we are. If that be
true, then while he is in our brains, the
tissues do not give way for him. And there
you’d have a case of two things being in
the same spot at the same time, would
you not?”
As I stood staring dumbly at him,
Austin continued. "Another thing: we see
a baby on the floor, playing. We rapidly
think of his future life—think of what he
will experience when he grows up. We
outline his life for him. We can actually
picture him a man, working, say, in an
office. Yet there he is, still a baby on the
floor. We have gone into the future for
twenty years—yet we are in the present
all the time.”
Here I managed to put in a few words.
"Nonsense, Austin, that isn’t going into
the future at all. Why, the baby may
even die or be killed long before he
reaches manhood.”
"I admit that the baby would probably
never follow the life we pictured for him.
But, and here’s the most important point,
the marvelous Mind which created our
universe, and all the others in the great
void of space, would surely be able to
foresee and direct the lives of the inhab¬
itants of these universes. That wouldn’t
be so hard as it seems for a vastly power¬
333
ful mind. You see that there are a num¬
ber of types, in each and every city, which
are duplicated and reduplicated, and these
types lead similar lives; so thinking for
one, this Mind would think for all that
are classified in a certain type.
"Now, of course, by giving each crea¬
ture a brain of its own, these creations,
while following generally the life-plan
for certain types, can also think for them¬
selves and so change their planned lives
a bit—just as if you invented a game, de¬
termining the moves of the pieces and
then letting each piece play itself.
"It seems as if I had wandered from
my subject, but I merely wished to demon¬
state the possible correctness of my theory.
As for the baby—accepting my theory,
you will see that his life is, in a sense,
mapped out for him. Now, if we have a
machine which travels in the dimension
of Time, we can see into the future as
readily as into the past. At least we may{
see the future as it will be, or rather is
being, enacted at the present moment.”
I looked at my friend. He was not smil¬
ing, but deeply in earnest. Had he been
working too hard and was his mind un¬
balanced? I laughed at this thought. My;
laugh sounded harsh and out of place, so
I immediately stifled it. The silence was
growing uncomfortable to me, so I spoke.
"By the way, Austin, what was it you
had to show me, now that you’re through
propounding theories?” I lighted the cig¬
arette I had just taken from the pack in
my hand. "Surely, you haven’t invented
a machine or something, that will take
you voyaging through time, or perhaps
the fourth dimension?” I added with a
smile.
Austin pierced me with his gaze.
"Yes,” he stated slowly, "I have! Those
things which I had you make were for
just such a purpose. With them I have
constructed a—time-traveler!”
334 WEIRD TALES
"You what?" I shrieked, and stepping
backward upset a small table, sending it
crashing to the floor. Flushing a little at
my awkwardness, I hastily righted the
table while my friend laughed good-
naturedly.
"Arthur, if smoking affects you in that
manner, you must stop it,” scolded Aus¬
tin with sham seriousness. "But honestly,
now, time-traveling doesn’t really stun
you, does it? Surely, you’ve heard me
speak of its probability hundreds of times.
But come. See for yourself.”
3 setting the dials, adjusting the lever, and
H e entered his laboratory, returning
in a few moments wheeling a strange
contrivance before him. In response to
my questioning gaze he stated that he
wished to show me something humorous
that it would be impossible to see in the
laboratory.
As I stared at the complicated mass of
machinery before me, a peculiar feeling
stole over me, a feeling that, somehow,
there was something queer about this con¬
traption. In a moment I saw what it was,
and I gasped. Parts of the apparatus
faded into thin air! Here, a solid, tangible
rod would become gradually transparent,
finally to vanish utterly. There, seeming¬
ly suspended in midair, was a round piece
of brass; yet it could not be doubted that
the invisible part of the shiny rod sup¬
ported the yellow object.
Wheels—rods—cones—balls, all colors
of the rainbow, gleamed at me coldly.
Used though I was to machinery of all
kinds, I was bewildered by this intricate
mechanism.
Supported on all this was a stone plat¬
form of some sort. Pearly white in the
center, streaks of rose tinged the rounded
edges. From the middle of the stone rose
a steel pedestal ending in a flat, black sur¬
face. On it were two dials and a small
switch. Arranged in a complete circle
around each dial-controlled pointer were
a series of tiny numerals. The numbers
around the larger of the two dials ran by
thousands, from one to two millions. The
pointer stood at one million. Grouped
about the smaller dial were the numerals
from one to one thousand, with a space of
ten between the figures. Close to the
pedestal was a lever which was so situ¬
ated that it could be shoved into one of
ten slots, at will. I immediately under¬
stood these things to be the controlling
apparatus for the traveler. By merely
pressing the switch, one could send the
machine into either the past or the future.
"Naturally, this, the first model, is rather
crude and faulty, although perfectly safe
to travel in.” As I began to edge away:
"I see, Art, that you have not outgrown
your cautiousness, even after all these
years. But as I was saying, there are many
trifling mechanical discrepancies to be
overcome. Probably the most obvious of
these is that the finest adjustment of this
model is in years.”
"I see,” said I. "The first stop possible
is exactly one year in the past or future,
as the case may be. And the next would
be one year from that.” As my friend
nodded his acquiescence, I asked, "How is
this contraption made, and what makes it
go?”
"Ah, that is my secret,” responded
Austin. "But you have only to think of
time as a road, extending into infinity, to
grasp the fundamental idea of the thing.
If you are in an automobile, you step on
the accelerator and immediately you travel
over the asphalt until you reach an entire¬
ly different place than that from which
you started. Right? Well, in this case a
person has merely to set the dials, throw
the switch, and a different place on the
road of time is reached.”
 THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH TIME
"I don’t quite understand,” I remarked.
"You tell me to imagine time as a road.
One moves forward or backward on a
road, in order to reach a new place. But
time-?”
Austin smiled. "Arthur, have you ever
heard of the fourth dimension? Well,
by using the fourth dimension as a direc¬
tion, and with a machine suitable for
traveling into this dimension, one may
move up and down on the road of time
as easily as one travels on any other road.”
"Yes, but where, in the name of every¬
thing under the sun, is this fourth dimen¬
sion? What other direction is there, but
forward, backward, up, or down?”
"I admit that it is rather difficult for
you to accept the fact that there is a di¬
mension in existence, at right angles with
the other three, which can neither be seen
nor pictured in the mind. Even I, after
having built a vehicle that travels in this
dimension, can not completely compre¬
hend it. But then there are so many
things in this world that are utterly im¬
possible for us to understand. Life, for
instance. Why are we here? Why were
we created in the first place? Why, my
boy, have we-”
Here I interrupted my friend, for I
knew that if he once got started on his
pet problem, nothing could stop him;
not even the demonstration of his time-
traveler. "Austin, weren’t you explain¬
ing the fourth dimension to me?” I put
in gently. He ceased speaking, and as he
realized how he had strayed from his sub¬
ject, his cheeks grew red. Then we both
laughed. He again took up the original
theme of conversation.
"As I said before, it is impossible to
explain or describe the fourth dimension
to a person who has never in his life
known more than three. It is the same
proposition as explaining and describing
the third dimension to a two-dimensional
335
being. The best, in fact the only method
of explanation, in either case, is demon¬
stration. Come, and I shall show you
what it is to travel through time in the
fourth dimension.”
(<\\ T ATT,” I faltered. "Are you sure
▼ V that there is no danger? You
know, I-”
"Yes, I know. You are still the old
cautious John of school days, aren’t you?”
Then as I stepped reluctantly onto the
platform beside the young inventor, he
added, "But I see that your curiosity even
yet gets the better of your caution.”
"Then I am to understand that what
is known as Time is the fourth dimen¬
sion?” I queried, as Brammas made a few
trifling adjustments to the mechanism of
his machine.
"By no means,” my friend replied.
"The fourth dimension is merely the
means by which we may have access to
the road of time; it is merely the direc¬
tion in which we travel to gain the future
or regain the past. A good illustration
of my point is giving the means of trav¬
eling in the third dimension to a two-
dimensional creature. But enough of this
confusing talk; let’s take a little voyage.
Which would you rather see first, the
past or the future?”
"Well, I think the past would be good
enough for a starter. The future might
prove to be too much of a shock to one
who is unused to playing around with
time,” I responded.
"All right, how far back would you
care to go?”
"Um-m-m-m—how about 1917—the
World War?”
Brammas scratched his chin. "I can’t
show you any battle scenes, because we’re
in America. To see the actual fighting,
it would, of course, be necessary to go to
336 WEIRD TALES
Europe. But we’ll take a look at what
was—or rather, is-—happening here on
the evening of April 19, 1917.”
To say that I felt nervous would be
far understating the facts. If anything
should happen to us—supposing we
should be marooned in the primeval past.'
But Austin had assured me that it was
perfectly safe, and he would not have said
so if it weren’t. Besides, he had probably
made several voyages himself, with per¬
fect security. And it would be gratify¬
ing to one’s curiosity to see the actual
past being relived before one’s eyes. So
I let him set the dials, and slip the lever
into the proper notch, without saying any¬
thing. Oh, if I had only known what was
to happen! If I had only persuaded my
friend to give up his playing with time!
Now—now, it is too late. But I mustn’t
go on like this; that is all past, now. I’ll
go on with my tale, if you so desire.
"See,” Austin was saying, "the year
1917 is thirteen past, isn’t it? Now, to
reach that year, it is necessary to turn this
small dial until it points to ten, leaving
the larger dial untouched. Then, after
inserting the lever into the third slot, we
are ready to close the switch by throwing
it to the left, so, and commence our jour¬
ney.”
When Austin clicked the switch over,
a sound of well-oiled machinery whirred
softly in my ears. The platform on which
we stood began vibrating gently beneath
us. Faster and faster it vibrated, while
a queer feeling stole over me; I felt al¬
most as though I were in a swiftly des¬
cending elevator. Then I seemed to see
Austin and myself regarding a duplicate
of the machine on which we now stood.
Suddenly, the scene became obscured by
several huge bubbles of azure hue, revolv¬
ing easily with a circular motion. Without
a sound they burst before my fascinated
eyes, sending lazy, tinted streamers float¬
ing, swaying to the floor, darkening my
view of the laboratory.
However, before the colored clouds
obliterated the room and its contents, my
counterpart backed toward a small table,
turned, disarranged the things thereon,
clutched it firmly in both hands, then sank
to the floor with the table still held tightly
in his grasp.
Austin’s chuckle reached my ears. I
looked at him, smiling myself, at the an¬
tics my double had gone through. The
shimmering azure blurred my friend’s
visage somewhat, but I could see that he
was wearing a broad grin. He spoke:
"Boy! you sure looked funny, then. I
wouldn’t have missed that for a thousand.”
He had scarcely finished when he be¬
came totally invisible to me, because of
the hovering blanket of blue.
In a short time, a tiny fleck of white
appeared in the center of the pall. Soon,
by degrees, the hole grew larger. It
seemed as though we were speeding down
a tube of living color, a tube which began
where we had started, and ended in the
constantly enlarging hole of white. As
this opening increased in size, bits of
scenery could be observed, growing stead¬
ily clearer.
When I noticed this, I began wonder¬
ing what the people of the past v/ould
think of us, and where we would come to
rest. I begged my friend to stop for only
a minute or two, for I knew it would be
embarrassing to me to be exposed to the
public gaze, while I stood on this infernal
contraption. The second problem was
easily solved. Before Brammas had built
his laboratory in 1928, there had never
been anything on the site, as far back as I
could remember. It had never been more
than a vacant lot since my childhood, any¬
way.
I had scarcely ceased my musings, when
we emerged from the tube of color, and
W.T.—3
 THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH TIME
stood gazing at the village of Flintsville
as it was in the year 1917, a few weeks
after the United States had declared war
against Germany.
5 with the prospect of another voyage.
ON the side of the street opposite us
was a long line of young men press¬
ing forward toward a door, over which
was a crudely painted red, white, and
blue sign that read, "Enlist Here.” Be¬
fore our eyes were living, breathing men.
Men who, perhaps, were later on to give
their lives for their country, stood before
our gaze—recalled from the dead to live
again a brief scene of the past for us. It
was uncanny.
On all the corners were little groups,
talking, arguing, and gesticulating. Be¬
neath an American flag stood an army
officer, haranguing a crowd gathered
about him, on patriotism. A truck, load¬
ed with the recently enlisted, rumbled
down the street, followed by a host of
shouting youngsters and barking dogs.
"What do you say to a good, old-
fashioned, five-cent schooner of beer?” I
asked Brammas, pointing across the street.
My friend’s gaze followed my finger,
which indicated an old building, whose
stained glass window bore the words:
"Jake’s Place, Good Beer and Lunch.”
"I’m afraid not,” spoke he. "You see,
I shouldn’t like to leave the machine, for
if anything should happen to it, we’d
never be able to get back to the future.”
"Future?”
"Of course. This surely isn’t the past
any more, now that we’re here, is it? And
what was the present to us a minute or
two ago, is now the future. It just goes
to show how non-existent is time. One
instant the present is called the future; in
another, it is called the present; another
second elapses, and it is called the past.
How idiotic!”
W.T.—4
337
"Say, don’t you think we had better be
getting along? Let’s go back farther, shall
we?” I put in. "I’m certainly curious to
see something real old.” My fear was
entirely gone, now, and I was thrilled
"All right. What do you say to a visit
to America as it was in 1492, a few
months before the landing of Columbus?”
and he bent over the instrument board.
"Um-m-m, let’s see. Four hundred and
twenty-five years ago,” he mused. "Four
hundred and twenty for the small dial,
and the fifth notch for the lever. All set?
Let’s go.” He pressed the switch, and
the machinery whirred.
During all the time we had been in the
lot we escaped notice, probably because
the tall grasses hid the time-eliminator
from view, and it looked as though we
were standing on the ground. But just
as the first bubble of blue burst and sent
its streamers of living color drifting be¬
fore our eyes, a newsboy of about fifteen
years espied us. His mouth was open;
evidently he was trying to sell Brammas
and me a paper with the latest war news
in it. In a moment he had backed away
and was lost to view in the pall of blue. I
guess he was mighty surprized to see his
prospective buyers fade away into thin
air before his startled eyes, for all the
world like a couple of stage magicians.
As we hurtled through the whirling
tube of azure hue with ever-increasing
speed, I remarked, "Say, Austin, didn’t
that newsboy seem familiar to you?”
"Indeed he did! Do you know who
he was?” I shook my head. "That boy’s
name is Austin Brammas—Austin J.
Brammas, to be exact. He was a bit over
sixteen in that last scene.”
I was dumfounded. "What!” I de¬
manded. "Now, don’t try to kid me;
you know as well as I do that that’s utter¬
ly impossible. How could that boy have
been you? Granted that we can make the
m WEIRD TALES
past live again, as we have been doing,
how is it that we can change the past?
iWhen you were sixteen—the very first
time, I mean—you know right well that
you never saw two men standing in a iot
dissolve into nothingness, did you?”
"Well, my boy,” replied Austin, his
eyes twinkling with merriment, "for one
thing, that wasn’t the past. It was the
present, even as it is now the future. But
that is not the point. I maintain that time,
or, rather, the scenes which compose
time, remain intact forever. Don’t ask
me how or why, because I haven’t the
slightest conception. Nevertheless, it re¬
mains so. And if a person is in some way
returned to the past, I believe—I know
•—that he may, to a certain extent—mind:
I say, to a certain extent—change that
past without in any way affecting the
events to come—or, I had better say, the
events ahead; they are already here. We,
in our eternal, snail-pacing, never-ceasing
creep into the fourth dimension, have
merely not overtaken them, yet.”
By this time I was becoming too bewil¬
dered to think; accordingly I changed the
subject. What on earth, I wanted to
know, did a mass of blue bubbles and a
peculiar pulling sensation have to do with
traveling, whether it be in the fourth or
any other dimension? My young friend
hastily assured me that the tube of color
and all attending sensations were the
product of our own minds.
"For instance,” Brammas explained,
"that young relative of mine, the news¬
boy, saw no color phenomenon—we sim¬
ply faded from his sight, I imagine. Like
yourself, I see no possible connection be¬
tween our motion in the fourth dimension,
and color; therefore, old son, our senses
are tricking us. Probably our terrific
speed causes some disturbance or distor¬
tion of the light-waves reaching our eyes,
affecting the optic nerves in such a man¬
ner that the bursting balloon effect is
produced. On the other hand, the feeling
you describe as 'pulling’ is due, no doubt,
to our actual rapid motion in the fourth
dimension.”
And thus we conversed as we raced
back over the centuries on the most re¬
markable and diabolical invention ever to
spring from the mind of man. It took
only four or five minutes to land us at
Flintsville, April 19, 1492. There was
a slight jar, and the machine stopped.
6
W E stood on a small, flat-topped,
stony rise, in the center of a broad
expanse of boulder-covered ground that
evidently had at one time been a river
of considerable size. Now, though, the
arroyo was devoid of any moisture.
"Say, my boy,” I mocked Austin’s pe¬
culiar habit; "lucky for us this contraption
didn't stop on a hillside and roll to a
spot where, when we materialized in your
room again, we’d be on the exterior of the
bed, or something.”
"I hadn’t thought of that,” he re¬
sponded seriously. "It would be a dan¬
gerous thing to have our position altered;
for, now that you mention it, I doubt
whether we could step off this platform
to move the machine and remain alive.
If I had accepted your invitation to leave
the machine and cross the street to that
saloon a little while ago, we would un¬
doubtedly both be dead now.”
"Why?” I demanded.
I don’t recall exactly what he answered
now, but it was to the effect that we were
part of the past only while we were under
the influence of the time-eliminator.
There would be no telling what would
happen should one of us step from the
platform, he told me. Perhaps the care¬
less person would even be thrown into a
new—a fifth—dimension. His conclud¬
ing sentence was:
 THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH TIME
"But if some one from the past should
step on the platform, I can forsee no pos¬
sible danger to him, since he would still
be in his own plane, or world; for, you
understand, it is we who are influenced
by the fourth dimension, not the scene
before us.”
All thoughts of this perplexing situ¬
ation faded from my mind for the mo¬
ment, because, glancing toward the edge
of the forest to the rear and to the right,
I beheld a human figure step forth from
the shadow of the trees into the rosy, if
somewhat pale, light of the setting sun.
I nudged Austin and pointed.
The figure was that of an Indian, out¬
fitted with bow and arrow, and he was
followed by a score or more of others,
some with burdens, some empty-handed.
A hunting-party returning to their vil¬
lage with the spoils of the day, was my
guess. Manifestly we were not seen, for
the group struck out straight across the
river-bed some distance below us with¬
out so much as a glance in our direction.
We watched the little company in mo¬
tionless silence as it trooped along over
the rough ground at a steady, tireless pace.
Then suddenly, as the sun sank still
lower and shadows lengthened, a ray of
sunlight found an answering flash in the
polished mechanism beneath us. The
silhouette of the leading Indian stiffened
and tensed, stopping instantly. Turning
his back to the sun, he scanned the land¬
scape in our direction intently. He easily
discerned the form of our machine with
us on it, situated as we were on the tiny
plateau in the midst of the arroyo.
Waving his hand aloft he shouted some
unintelligible sound and made off in our
direction at a fast trot, the string of fol¬
lowers tagging along at his heels.
"Austin!” I exclaimed in a sharp bark.
"What do they intend to do? Kill us?”
"No, of course not”—calmly. "Why
should they want to murder us? We are
339
total strangers to them—they’ve never
seen a white man before in their lives.
But to please you, I’ll play safe and set
the dials for our return; then all that I’ll
need to do, in case danger threatens, is
to throw over the switch, and we’ll be off
for the future.”
I kept my eyes on the rapidly nearing
band, while Austin fumbled with the con¬
trols. I almost hopped off the platform
when my friend ejaculated, "Ouch!” so
absorbed was I in staring at the approach¬
ing savages, who, by all sane reasoning,
had been dead for over four centuries.
Brammas turned a scowling face toward
me. "Say,” he growled, "that mosquito
certainly had a nerve to bite a distin¬
guished visitor like me.”
"Why, how is that?” I questioned.
"Thought you said that we were under
the protection of this contraption of yours.
Didn’t I understand you to say, a few
moments ago, that it would be death for a
creature of the past to step aboard this
platform?”
"No. I said we are under the influence
of my invention only while we stand on
this platform. The instant we step off,
heaven only knows what would happen.
But since the landscape before us (and
consequently everything in or above it)
is untouched by our fourth-dimensional
stimulator, that confounded mosquito
could and did land on my neck without
any harm to himself. You see, he still
remained in his own sphere. Under¬
stand?”
I nodded in a dazed, bewildered man¬
ner.
"The thing is a little difficult to ex¬
plain,” he continued, "but maybe—ah-h,
I’ve got it! Comparing my invention to
an airplane, the identical results are ob¬
tained. Listen.”
He cleared his throat slightly, then
went on. "Supposing you take a ride in
a plane. While you are in the air you
340 WEIRD TALES
daren’t jump—without a parachute—for
you are suspended among the clouds only
through the power of your machine. On
the other hand, a bird may alight on your
ship without danger of sinking (disre¬
garding, of course, all hazards from wind,
propeller, et cetera) by reason of his al¬
ready being suspended in the sky without
mechanical aid. You can not leave your
plane and expect your body to be sup¬
ported by the air. The bird, however,
can rely on your ship to support him. Of
course, the bird really required energy to
remain aloft, while the mosquito needed
no effort to remain at this fourth dimen¬
sional height, if I may call it that. How¬
ever, we mustn’t neglect our friends
here.” He swung toward the Indians,
who had arrived by this time and were
engaged in examining us, at a distance of
about ten feet. Their faces showed that
they were filled with curiosity not un¬
mixed with considerable awe.
7 were not a whit less splendidly built, al¬
A s an opening gesture of ambassador-
l ship, Austin waved a friendly arm
in their direction. At this, the leader,
who was much older than the rest, and
manifestly of a higher standing than any
present, conferred with a haughty indi¬
vidual standing at his side. The latter
was conspicuous by reason of a good deal
of ornaments or charms he wore, and by
reason of the evil, arrogant leer on his
scarred, unlovely visage.
The two talked in a monotone, using
a vast amount of pointing and gesticulat¬
ing to help out. Once the older man
gestured toward us, then touched his
cheek, meanwhile shaking his head. He
had noticed our white skins even in the
half-light of dusk. The malevolent one
—who appeared to be some sort of a
medicine man—seemed to grow angry,
his countenance darkening and becoming
more malicious every instant. Then when
the leader designated us with one hand
and swung the other in an arc as if to
include the heavens above us, the med¬
icine man, if that’s what he was, gave the
impression he was about to burst. He
stamped his moccasined foot, snapped his
head back and forth with almost incon¬
ceivable rapidity, then poured a perfect
deluge of sounds into the older man’s
ears. His listener remained passive
throughout the blustering speech. The
one-sided conversation ceased abruptly
and the elderly one stepped close to where
we stood, disregarding angry protests
from the wrathful one.
After a somewhat humble bow, he di¬
rected a few concise statements to us in
a manner that was nothing if not respect¬
ful. Even in the darkness I could see
what a splendid physique he possessed.
Tall, straight, firm and strong he was,
with a noble posture that would have been
the envy of many a king. His followers
though they were scarcely more than lads.
The speaker finished with a polite beck¬
oning for us to get down off the platform
and fall in behind him.
"Sorry, old man,” Austin shook his
head and smiled. "We don’t speak your
lingo.” At this reply in an unfamiliar
tongue, the Indian started back a step,
eyes wide, surprize in every feature—he
was clearly taken aback.
During the performance, the evil one
had been peering intently in our direction,
drinking in every detail of the scene.
Now he sprang quickly forward, his
adorning trinkets rattling noisily, and
commenced another torrent of guttural
remarks addressed to the leader, all the
while glaring at us with malignant dis¬
trust.
Taking in the pernicious, leering face
of the medicine man, the hesitating, puz¬
zled look of the elderly one, and the
 THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH TIME
ready-for-peace-or-war attitude of the fol”
lowers who stood not far off, expectantly
watching, I became fidgety, nervous. I
whispered an anxious plea to Brammas,
but he paid no heed. His whole person
was absorbed in deep fascination at the
debating pair.
Finally, with an impatient thrust, the
glaring one pushed the leader aside,
strode up to Brammas and me, giving an
order in a decidedly overbearing tone, at
the same time bestowing upon us a with¬
ering glance, and motioning us imperi¬
ously to descend from the machine.
“I don’t like him,” declared Austin to
me, giving a vigorous shake of the head
to inform the Indian of our intention of
staying where we were. Again the med¬
icine man snapped out his command. He
was answered by another defiant toss of
the head from Austin.
With an angry, inarticulate snarl, the
Indian reached out, seizing my inventor
friend’s arm tightly, roughly attempting
to pull him to the ground.
"Stop that,” uttered Austin fiercely, his
pale blue eyes flashing with the glint of
hard steel, and his face growing white,
as it always did when he became angry.
My friend always disliked any one who
tried to enforce a disagreeable order by
bodily strength, and now I could see his
temper getting out of all control.
With a jerk, Austin yanked his arm
free and ordered the menacing savage
away. My friend was breathing heavily
and his face was aflame as he whipped
his hand in a half-circle to disperse the
band of Redmen. Then turning on his
heel, Austin stepped over to the control¬
ling switch, stretching forth a hand to
flip it over.
But the persistent medicine man was
not thus to be thwarted. With a lunge
he scrambled onto the platform with us,
reaching out to clutch Brammas and drag
him backward off the machine. Even be¬
341
fore I could cry out a warning, Brammas
had turned instinctively to face his tor-
menter.
What then occurred will be forever im¬
printed on my mind. I hadn’t taken part
in this vivid drama of the clash of mod¬
ern and primitive man so far, and now
each was oblivious of all save his oppo¬
nent. In dumfounded amazement I
stared, petrified—even as were the rest of
the spectators opposite me. Like an in¬
visible and unseen observer I watched,
breathlessly.
The two stood facing each other—
Austin with clenched fists and squared
jaw, the savage with twitching open
hands and heaving chest. Austin feinted;
then as the Indian’s hands thrust at the
laboratory apron he wore, my friend,
eyes blazing as with fire, struck out with
all the power in his far from feeble right
arm, putting all his weight behind the
blow. His fist caught the insolent sav¬
age squarely in the center of his sinister
face with a loud smack. The Indian was
lifted clear off his feet and hurled back¬
ward off the platform, landing heavily on
his back in the dirt. He lay there, silent
and motionless, blood spurting from nose
and mouth in a crimson flood. Not a
groan, not a twitching muscle betrayed
any sign of consciousness in the recumbent
form.
Brammas stood nursing a red, stinging
fist while I awoke to action and sidled
over to the control panel, reached out,
turned the switch with a loud click. Be¬
fore the mechanism began its smooth
whirring, a sharp twang! penetrated to my
ears; then the vibrating platform beneath
me sent a thrill of joy surging through
every fiber of my body.
In silence we sped through the time-
dimension, Brammas not speaking, and
I glad of the quiet that enabled me to
compose my excited feelings. My heart
was filled with rejoicing at the queer sen-
342 WEIRD TALES
sation denoting our tremendous velocity
down the time-tube. In an amazingly
short time, I thought, the machine slowed
down, the platform ceased vibrating. I humiliated at the idea that I had been
breathed a profound sigh of relief and
glanced around for the familiar white
plaster walls of Austin’s tiny room.
8
he next instant I swallowed at a
lump that suddenly swelled in my
throat, and the back of my nedc felt clam¬
my and prickly. The machine had stopped
and we were not in Austin’s room! The
scene before me was almost identical with
the one we had just left! There was the
same wild, untamed vegetation at the edge
of the arid, stony, dry river-bed in which
we were, and the same wild, dark forest
silhouetted in the pale light of the moon,
off to my right. The one salient feature
—one that made me thankful from the
bottom of my heart—that marked the
variance of the view before me and that
era left behind was that nowhere was a
sign of life, animal or Indian, apparent.
But in a flash the horror of the thing
became vividly dear, striking home with
a force that left me breathless. Marooned
in the heart of a savage, primitive land
where no white men would appear for
perhaps hundreds of years! I could feel
my whole body sag; I felt weakly limp.
A choking gasp from the region of my
ankles caused me to look down.
There lay Austin at my feet, eyes
closed, face white and drawn, his bosom
splashed with red, and an arrow protrud¬
ing from the region of his heart! I was
absolutely crushed at this development.
Austin, my friend—the only person in
the entire universe who could get us out
of this awful predicament—at my feet,
dead or dying! Fate had cast me away in
a lost land, and not satisfied with this,
was taking my only hope of rescue beyond
my reach.
Then the fact became clear to me that
it was my friend who was at my feet, my
school chum dying. I was thoroughly
thinking about my own safety when Aus¬
tin lay so still on the platform, needing
aid and needing it quickly. Of course,
these thoughts were only vague, half de¬
fined, as they flitted through my mind in
one fleeting instant. I mustered every
ounce of energy I had in my sagging form
so that I might be of aid to Austin with
rapid but composed action.
I dropped to my knees, and, hoping
against hope, made feverish attempts to
revive my injured friend. My efforts
were at last rewarded by an almost in¬
audible utterance: "Are—we—home?”
I strove to make my voice sound sooth¬
ing and even as I answered. But when
my gaze roamed involuntarily to the dis¬
mal scene about me, my voice wavered
weakly as I forced the words from my
dry, hot throat. "Uh—yes. Just lie still
—until you feel better. Everything is all
right.”
At my feebly spoken words Austin
glanced out of the corner of his eye at
his surroundings. At first he tensed, then
his eyes widened. He made a queer noise
I judged to be a pitiful attempt at a
chuckle. He was not successful; the try
ended in his clutching at his breast with
both hands, gritting his teeth noisily as
he did so. In a moment he seemed to gain
strength. Shortly afterward he sat up,
wheezingly, and spoke.
"There,” he rasped, after he had
rested a bit; "I feel better now. That in¬
fernal mosquito—made me forget to—
set one of the dials”
At his speech, I almost yelled with
joy. A second ago we had been stranded
forever in an unthinkable country whose
only inhabitants were wild animals and
wilder savages. Austin had lain at my
feet with his lifeblood slowly seeping
 THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH TIME
from a vicious arrow-wound in his
chest. Now, returning to the future was
a pleasant certainty, while I couldn’t help
believing my friend would not succumb
before I had him placed in the hands
of a capable Twentieth Century physi¬
cian.
"Tell me how to set that dial, quick!”
I breathed in exuberant spirits. "When
we get home, I’ll rush you off to a spe¬
cialist, first thing!”
"No, no,” he wheezed. "First get this
awful thing out of my chest. It may be
poisoned.”
I dissented, arguing that I might make
his already critical condition even more
serious. However, he was insistent. So,
by the beam of a small but powerful
electric torch I habitually carried, I set
myself to the task of disengaging the
slender shaft from Austin’s body. I had
terrible difficulty in drawing the thing
out because it was barbed and stuck tena¬
ciously. At last, through the insistence
of the wounded man, I gave one quick
wrench and literally tore it from his body.
In horror and revulsion I flung the thing
from me. There was a sharp crackling,
and it vanished in midair as it cleared
the platform. Subconsciously, as I wiped
my bloody hands on my trousers and
jacket for want of a handkerchief, I re¬
membered that the arrow had traveled
into the future with us; hence it too had
been under the control of the time ma¬
chine until a moment before.
While Austin lay resting quietly, I
tried to set the correct dialing of the un¬
familiar apparatus, as I had been directed
to do. I had it at last and was about to
throw the switch when Austin startled
me by hoarsely yelling: "Wait!” I you must expect a—a violent jolt or per¬
glanced inquiringly at him, but the dark¬
ness screened his face from me. A low,
moaning murmur reached me and I
knelt beside my poor friend, asking
343
him what the matter was, though I
thought I knew well enough.
"We are marooned!” he gasped. My
whole body felt chilled when he said that.
"We have spent—some hours in—the
past. If we go back—to 1930, it will be
nearly—eight o’clock at night; and we left
at seventeen minutes to six.” He sank
back, exhausted.
For awhile I couldn’t see light. Then
it flashed upon me in a burst of memory.
That arrow! Something had happened
to it when I cast it away. What was it
Brammas had said? "We are under the
influence of the machine only while we
stand on this platform. The moment we
step off, heaven only knows what would
happen.” Bit by bit I unraveled the knot.
This is how I sized up the situation.
We had spent two or three hours in the
past. Now, unless we waited for a
whole year, we would be unable to get
off the machine should we reach our
rightful time. The eliminator would
carry us a few hours into the future that
we had never actually lived. Hence, to
be able to resume our natural life, and
to be able to leave the machine without
ill effects, we would have to stop the
time-eater at the exact moment we had
originally left our world. I sobbed aloud
in hopeless despondency.
9
here’s one chance in a mi—a mil-
A lion,” Austin breathed falteringly.
"But we’ll have to take it. I know the
speed—of my machine, and if—if I can
figure out the time—accurately enough,
we may be able—to get through all—all
right. I’m praying that a min—minute
or two off won’t seriously injure—us, but
haps—unconsciousness.” A long pause,
then the halting speech continued with,
"Here’s a pencil—work this out f—for
me.” The speaker extended toward me
344 WEIRD TALES
a stub of a pencil, taken from his pocket.
He lay back wearily, eyes closed.
Placing my pocket flash on the con¬
trol pedestal so that its rays illuminated
a small space at my feet, I knelt, waiting
for the dictation of my wounded friend.
Then for fifteen minutes I scribbled away,
checking every step thrice; I couldn’t
afford to make a single mistake now, with
our lives depending on the preciseness of
the scrawling array of calculations on the
luminous stone area.
When I had finished I placed my
trembling fingers on the switch near the
two rows of almost microscopic numer¬
als, eyes fixed in thrilled expectancy on
the second-hand of my watch. Numbly
my hand twitched and the time-switch
clicked over at the exact instant, leaving
me taut and cold with apprehension.
As the fateful second drew nigh, I
forced a smile to my dry lips, bending
close to the spot where I judged Austin’s
head to be. He was quietly awaiting the
crucial moment. Grasping his limp hand
in mine, I murmured: "If we don’t make
it—good-bye, old fellow.”
He sighed in answer and muttered rest¬
lessly, "Forgive me—Arthur. Forgive!
If you are killed, your—life will be on—
my hands.”
"Nonsense!” I retorted. "If anything
disastrous happens to me now, it will be
my fault entirely.” Then springing to
my feet, I exclaimed: "It’s time!” and
flipped over the control-switch. At the
click of the switch, I plunged my left arm
deep into the mechanism, and with my
right gave a terrific wrench at the year-
lever, exerting every bit of strength I pos¬
sessed.
A flare of light, a gnashing of cogs,
then—blackness! Every ligament of my
body was stretched, strained. I felt as
though I was being torn apart on the rack.
My left arm, entwined among the ma¬
chinery, suddenly came free, running
blood from the place where a steel frag¬
ment had bitten deeply. In a moment the
pain in my cut member merged into an
endless, racking throb of torture that
doubled me into a writhing, convulsed
spasm of suffering. I seemed to be
plunging through eternity—an eternity of
pulsing torture.
10
I drew a long, gasping breath into lungs
that seemed dead. With utmost dif¬
ficulty I managed to sit up. Soon a great
amount of the nausea and pain left me;
except for the dull, throbbing ache in my
left arm I suffered from no undue strain.
Then I thought of Austin.
By the glare of the street-lamp that
poured in through the high, narrow win¬
dow I made out a vague, indistinct some¬
thing lying near the old easychair my
friend had loved so well. I staggered
to my feet, crossed the floor unsteadily
(I was very weak and tired), and felt for
the electric light button with my right
hand, while the other hung limp and use¬
less at my side. As the lights flashed on
I moaned aloud. Austin lay on his back,
eyes distended, mouth agape, staring at
the white ceiling; a horrible expression
on his upturned face. Stooping beside
him, I gave a quick glance around the
room for the time-eliminator. It was no¬
where to be seen; more than likely its
ruined mechanism lay some hours behind
us. At this I was glad. I fervently hoped
that no one would ever find and repair it.
I prodded my friend gently, softly call¬
ing his name. He was dead! The fourth¬
dimensional fall—if that’s the correct
term—had been too much for him in his
weakened condition.
"Austin!” I shrieked. "Austin, get up!
Get up quick! Quick! Can’t you hear
me? Don’t you understand?” Suddenly
the little room seemed to sway—began
whirling around and around at dizzying
 THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH TIME 345

speed. Some one shouted in a muffled
voice; a pounding at the door reached me
faintly. I collapsed against the table, in¬
sensible.
The events that followed are all fan¬
tastically unreal to me; they are jumbled
like a half-forgotten nightmare.
I awoke from a black emptiness to find
myself being roughly dragged to my feet
and shaken like a rag. A uniformed giant
was yelling bewildering questions in harsh
tones. "I don’t know,” was all I could
mumble in answer; "I don’t know.”
In court they said I had told them a
wild tale about a machine that couldn’t be
found, and of terrible encounters with
ferocious savages who shot my companion
with arrows. "Clearly the ravings of a
demented being,” they declared in formal
accents. A policeman told of how he
had rushed into Austin’s laboratory in
answer to a shriek, and found me, hands
and clothes stained with another’s blood,
hysterical and incoherent beside the body
of my victim. Accusing voices demanded
what I had done with the knife, and when
I answered that I never owned one, deris¬
ive laughs echoed my reply. Lawyers
pondered over the reason why I had com¬
mitted the murder, and answered them¬
selves by saying that an insane man needs
no motive. Of course I protested the ac¬
cusations; but what could I do when my
own lawyers wouldn’t listen to the truth?
And so I was convicted and sent here
—here in this awful place, where the ut¬
terances of madmen fill the day, and fitful
sleep is interrupted at night by screams of
poor unfortunate creatures.
All I’ve said has been actual truth. If
you believe me, then by all that’s holy, get
me out! Get me out! GET ME OUT!

By ROBERT E. HOWARD

Hinged in the brooding west a black sun hung.

And Titan shadows barred the dying world.
The blind black oceans groped—their tendrils curled,
And writhed and fell in feathered spray and dung,
Climbing the granite ladders, rung by rung,
Which held them from the tribes whose death-cries skirled.
Above unholy fires red wings unfurled—
Gray ashes floated down from where they swung.

A demon crouched, chin propped on brutish fist,

Gripping a crystal ball between his knees.
His skull-mouth gaped and icy shone his eye.
Down crashed the crystal globe—a fire-shot mist
Masked the dark lands which sank below the seas—
A painted sun hung in the starless sky.
 nswer of the Dead
By J. PAUL SUTER
The protecting arms of the dead man reached hack from the
grave to shield the woman he loved
M Y FIRST memory of that night
brings up the sound of running
footsteps in the hall, and the
face of my mother, wide-eyed and tear¬
ful, as she snapped on my wall-light.
I was only fourteen then, yet I seem
to hear the anguish of her voice as sharply
as on that summer night.
"Arthur!” she sobbed. "Come quick,
my child, if you wish to see your father
alive!”
Her arm was around me through the
shadowy hall. The soft, comforting sup¬
port of it, while my world was slipping
away beneath me, is more vivid in mem¬
ory than the sight of the livid, pain-racked
face on the pillow.
My uncle—the famous doctor—stood
by my father’s bedside. His face was stem.
I thought nothing of that—he was always
stern. My mother and I were both afraid
of him. He bent over the bed, hiding
my father’s face from me for an instant,
then stood erect with an abrupt gesture.
"You are too late, Dora,” he said.
My mother ran to the bed and threw
her arms around the still figure. She
sobbed inconsolably. Of course I cried,
too. My uncle stood aloof for a little,
looking at us both; then he laid a firm
hand on her arm.
"You will have to control yourself,"
he chided. "This sort of thing won’t
bring him back. Come, Dora! Don’t let
yourself go!”
My mother straightened and faced him.
She seemed very slender and girlish.
346
Somehow, her sobs had ceased. Perhaps
his harsh words had had their effect.
"You think I shall not see him again,
Herbert?” she demanded, quietly.
"See him again? He is dead!”
"Dead?” She met his eyes, a strange
high defiance in her face. "Yes ... I
know. But I shall see him again. Soon!”
He talked at length after that—words
which even to me, a young boy, seemed
queerly unsympathetic. But they did not
remain in my mind as did the quiet yet
solemn prediction my mother had made.
Through the weeks which followed I was
to remember that more and more dis¬
tinctly.
For this was the beginning of what I
think of now as the nightmare period of
my boyhood. The crowds who came to
look at my father’s body were part of it.
He, too, had been a doctor, equally dis¬
tinguished with my uncle, but better
liked. My mother’s intense and silent
grief was part of it. So was my uncle’s
self-contained suavity. I hated him.
The worst of it came after the funeral.
I shiver yet at the memory of the men who
were waiting when we returned from the
grave. They took my mother away. I
clung to her until old Mrs. Ross, the
housekeeper, gently disengaged my hands.
When I asked why they had taken my
mother, she only sobbed. I was not to
know until the first day of the trial.
On the evening of that day, with the
trial continued until morning, I begged
Mrs. Ross to tell me what it all meant.
 THE ANSWER OF THE DEAD
",She stood at the very brink,
her arms stretched over
vacancy.”
We were back in the upper hall of our
big house—back without my mother.
Poor Mrs. Ross! Her own knowledge
of the terrible thing that had come upon
us was by no means exact. But it was
enough. She had been a witness, on my
mother’s behalf, at the trial, and she was
an intelligent woman, even though she
was old and rather deaf.
"Your mother used to be a nurse,
dearie,” she said.
"Nurses help to make people well.
They don’t kill!” I retorted.
"Of course they don’t, Arthur. Don’t
let no one tell you that they do. Not your
mother, anyway—poor lamb! But, being
a nurse as she is, she knows more than
lots of folks. They say she gave your
father disease germs with a”—she stum¬
bled ou the word—"a hypodermic.”
347
"She didn’t! Of course she didn’t!
Why should she?”
The old woman stroked my hair.
"Your father was a rich man, Arthur.
He left everything to her. All her life
she’s to have it. Then when she dies the
property is to go to you and Doctor
Forbes.”
Doctor Forbes was my unde. I can not
be sure—one can be sure of so few
things after twenty years—but I think
that at that moment the first germ of sus-
pidon against him entered my boyish
mind. Before the nightmare was over,
that suspidon was to grow into hideous
certainty. That instant, when the sun of
late afternoon, reflecting from the ruined
stone wall at the rear of our beautiful old
house, cast long, glancing beams on the
ceiling of the hall, and I stood with my
arms around old Mrs. Ross—that moment.
548 WEIRD TALES
long ago, may have been its first, faint
beginning.
"Mrs. Ross!’’ I gasped. "Unde doesn’t
think she did it? Unde doesn’t think so,
does he?”
Through the tears on her old-fashioned,
oval glasses, her eyes seemed oddly large
to me. I wondered why she did not
answer at once. At last, she did answer.
"Why, no, child. No, Arthur. Of
course, your uncle doesn’t think so. How
could he think such a monstrous thing?
Unless-”
She stopped, then suddenly blurted it
out:
"Unless she did it in her sleep! There,
child! I mustn’t say another word. I’ve
said too much now!”
She released herself from my forlorn
clutch and hurried away. But her last
words had brought something fc^ck to my
mind. One night, months before, I had
been restless and wakeful. Tossing in my
bed, I had heard footsteps in the hall. I
had rushed to the door.
My mother was in the hall. Bright
moonlight streamed through the window
at its farther end. As she walked in its
clear radiance, I saw her distinctly—her
hair blown back by some vagrant breeze,
her eyes fixed, her hands stretched grop¬
ingly before her like a blind man walking.
She had seemed not to hear my fright¬
ened cry, but had walked past me as if I
had not been there. I had seen her reach
her room. The door had closed behind
her.
If my mother roamed the house in her
sleep—if she did not know even me—
might she not, perhaps, do something—
something dreadful—and not know it,
either?
T he day came when I had my mother
back. Juries are sometimes dense,
but these men had shown intelligence.
They had acquitted her.
But somehow, somewhere, I heard a
whisper which tempered my triumph.
There was the suspicion that would not
down—the suggestion that perhaps she
had given the fatal hypodermic in her
sleep.
These things came obscurely to my boy¬
ish mind, and in the years since that time
I have never cared to go into the records
of the trial. It was enough to me then to
have my mother once more.
Yet something in my uncle’s attitude
toward her made me vaguely uneasy. He
was a harsh man. His eminence in the
profession had come from sheer ability,
not in the least from any personal liking
for him on the part of his patients.
Why should he change now? Why
should he begin to seem kindly and sym¬
pathetic toward my mother and me? I dis¬
trusted him.
One evening, I heard his deep tones
behind the closed door of his study, and
my mother’s voice, replying. Something
was wrong; I did not know what—but it
was not her voice as I usually heard it. I
opened the door.
My mother was seated in the operating-
chair. Her head was thrown back. Her
eyes were dosed. Standing beside her, his
gaze fixed on her face, his huge shoulders
hunched forward, was my uncle. He had
not heard me come in.
He spoke. My brain was too confused
to catch his words, but I heard her obedi¬
ent reply.
"Remember what you have done!” he
continued, v/ith heavy emphasis.
"I will remember!” she returned.
Her voice was pitiful—like that of a
beaten, conquered thing. All my re¬
vulsion to the man at her side surged up
into my soul. I seem still to hear the
frightened tremolo of my own voice as I
rushed past him and clasped my mother.
"You mustn’t remember!” I screamed,
frantically. "You mustn’t remember,
 THE ANSWER OF THE DEAD
mother! He is trying to hurt you! I know
it, mother—I know it!”
A powerful grip seized me. My uncle’s
huge, bearded face shut out the world.
His da«-k eyes bored into mine. Yet he
was smiling.
'What mustn’t she remember?” he de¬
manded.
"Anything!” I cried, defiantly. "She
mustn’t remember anything you want her
to!”
"So that’s it!” He looked down at me,
thoughtfully. "Do you know that your
mother is very ill, Arthur?”
I shook my head. As I gazed up at him,
held firmly in his grip, his eyes seemed
hard like agates, in spite of his smile. But
what he had said worried me.
"She’s not ill!” I contradicted.
There was no conviction in my voice,
and he knew it.
"I fear you must let me be the judge of
that. After all, my boy, I am a mental
specialist. And your mother’s illness is of
the mind. Do you want to help her get
well?”
There could be only one answer to
such a question. I nodded.
"Then you must not interfere when I
am treating her. Now, I tell you what
we will do. We will go to the door—so.
And into the hall—so. And you will
never come into my study again unless I
bid you.”
The door shut. I was in the hall. I wisdom in leaving it there.
heard the bolt slip into place.
Then I realized that, through it all, my
mother had not spoken to me. She had
remained in the chair, motionless and
silent.
What he had been doing—why he had
done it—were to me all a blur of hor¬
rible mystery; too horrible for a boy of
fourteen to understand. Yet it was all to
become much worse.
349
W hether I deliberately managed to
stay up later I can not be sure, but
on several nights at intervals following
that unforgettable scene in the study I met
my mother wandering through the old
house. I gave up trying to talk with her.
She was walking in her sleep—I knew
the meaning of those fixed eyes and grop¬
ing hands. But once she herself spoke
and I heard the words.
That night, I rushed sobbing down the
hall and ran squarely into Mrs. Ross’s
soothing arms.
"Did you hear her?” I sobbed. "She
said--”
But die old woman clapped a kindly
hand over my mouth.
"Don’t repeat it, child. She doesn’t
know what she is saying. I have heard her
more than once.”
I was silent, but my mind was made
up: I would talk to my mother, herself—
in the daylight, when she was awake.
The opportunity came soon afterward,
on a sunny day when we were walking
together, she and I, in the garden back of
the house. Old John, the gardener, was
planting pansies along the foot of the
ruined wall, patting the brown earth lov¬
ingly about their roots as if he had been
putting children to bed. The wall was
all that a fire had left of an ancient stone
building, burned some years before my
birth. Ivy-dad and built of solid masonry,
it was a picturesque ruin. As an orna¬
ment to the garden, it justified my father’s
While my mother and I walked
between the rows of red and pink peonies
in the middle of the garden, my sharp
young senses noted the busy life of in¬
sects at the base of the wall, and the calls
of nesting birds higher among the ivy.
Some of the nests were very high. The
top of the old wall, at right angles to the
rear of the house, ran nearly level with
the eaves. It kept its altitude for a dozen
350 WEIRD TALES
feet or so, then sloped downward toward
the house by a series of irregular steps
until it reached the level of our second
story. I had been known to stride from
the window at the rear of the upper hall
to the lowest of these steps, and to climb
thence to the ultimate dizzy height; but
never with my mother’s approval.
"I hope you haven’t climbed the wall
lately, Arthur?” she asked, as we walked
together.
I shook my head.
"You must be very, very careful,” she
went on. "You are all I have now.”
Abruptly I spoke what was on my
mind.
"Mother!” I said. "After father died
you said you were going to see him again
soon. I heard you. Did you mean that—
that you were going to die, too?”
"No, dear,” she answered, gently.
I smiled up at her. That assurance had
lifted a load from me. But I wished to
know’ something more.
"Then you must have meant you were
going to see him without dying. Have
you seen him, mother?”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she shook
her head.
"Not yet, Arthur.”
"Then how did you know-”
"I just knew, dear. Let’s not talk
about it any more now.”
But there was still something else. I
had to know about this, too. My oppor¬
tunities to talk with my mother alone
were not many, now.
"Did father leave his money to you,
mother?” I demanded.
"Why—yes, child.”
"Then you are richer than Uncle
Herbert?”
"Herbert used to have just as much as
your father. Your grandfather divided his
property between them. But your unde
lost practically everything in some unwise
investments; so I fear he hasn’t much
except what comes from his practise.”
Her gray eyes twinkled. When they did
that, she was like what my mother used
to be before her tragedy came upon her.
"You’re asking some curious auestions
this morning, Arthur.”
"Who owns the house?” I persisted.
"Why—I do, I suppose.”
I stopped, and faced her squarely. We
were well out of earshot of the gardener.
The breeze whispered in the ivy, there
was the fragrant smell of upturned earth
and freshly mown grass, but my heart
was filled with blind rage at the unrea¬
sonableness of tilings. My mother—who
had never harmed any one—was in dan¬
ger. I knew it. I determined that she
should know, too.
"You own the house, mother! You’re
rich!” I denched my fists by my sides.
"Why do you let unde do those things
to you?”
"What things?”
"He puts you to sleep. You know he
does!”
"It is part of the treatment for my
nerves,” she said, gently. "Don’t forget,
Arthur—your Uncle Herbert is a great
nerve specialist.”
“Does he tell you what to do in your
sleep at night?” I demanded, hotly.
"Why, Arthur—I don’t understand.”
"He does!” I declared, bitterly. Hot
tears flooded my eyes. My voice was
breaking. But I was determined she
should be told the horrid thing that I
knew.
"He makes you walk about the house
at night in your sleep. He makes you say
that you killed father, and call for him
to come back. Mrs. Ross and I have both
heard you!”
For an instant she stood silent. Her
face was like stone. Suddenly she buried
it, with a little moan, in her hands.
“I did kill him!” she said, in a stifled
voice. "I did! I did! I did!”
 THE ANSWER OF THE DEAD
Before I could say a word to stop her,
weighed down as I was with horror, she
ran, sobbing and stumbling, to the house.
T hat night I could not sleep. Some¬
thing brooded over the house. Lying
in my narrow bed I felt its presence, and
when I threw down the covers at last and
crept to the broad-silled, open window to
look out at the moonlight, it seemed that
the wind which blew on my face was
charged with ominous whispering. A
boy’s fancy, no doubt; but to a boy such
fancies are real.
I could see the distant end of the
ruined wall in the rear garden, and the
rustling ivy. A mist was rising from the
ground. It curled over the wall, hid the
ancient stones from sight one moment,
the next untwisted again and revealed
them to the moon, then once more covered
their scarred surface with a gray blanket.
At length the swirling motion made me
drowsy. I yawned and started back to bed;
only to be awake and alert in an instant,
before I had taken five steps.
I had heard my mother’s voice.
It floated in to me through the open
window, and, over and over, it was call¬
ing my name:
“Arthur! Arthur!’
There was nothing of fright in the call.
I had heard her when she had thought I
was in danger—for instance, when I had
been clambering up the ruined wall—and
her tone had been altogether different.
She had been filled then with acute un¬
easiness on my behalf. Now she was
calling lightly, almost gayly. I had no
doubt she had gone out into the garden,
and that for some reason she wished me
to walk there with her.
By merely looking out of the window,
I might have corrected that mistake. The
truth would have been apparent in a flash.
But I did not look out. I ran into the
hall, instead, clad only in my thin night-
351
robe, and rushed to the broad staircase. If
my mother was calling, I would go to her.
The stairs were at the front of the old
house. My room was at the rear. I passed
three other doors in the moon-diluted
darkness, the first, that of Mrs. Ross, then
my mother’s, then my uncle’s. Strange
how the memory seems to ignore, yet re¬
tains! I could hardly have glanced at
those doors, but I recall, with certainty,
that the first I passed was shut, and that
the other two were ajar. There was death
itself in that fact. Yet how could I have
known?
Another recollection comes to my mind
—one that at a different time and place
would have counted for nothing, but
which that night was filled with deadly
meaning: the door of my own room had
slammed shut as I left, yet through the
upper hall and down the stairs my light
garment wrapped around me, blown by
a steady wind. The wind followed me
through the long lower hall, till I reached
the garden door.
It was bolted. I pulled desperately at
the stiff bolt, which was a little high for
me to reach, and at last it yielded. With
its loosening, the door swung open. The
mist-laden breath of the garden met me.
I ran out, and down the steps. At once
I found myself wading breast-high
through a pool of fog, which flowed along
the ground and hid the grass and the
familiar flowers. To the left the rugged
wall lifted itself clear in the moonlight,
but my eyes were not for it. I scanned
the rippling surface of the fog. She was
not there.
"Mother!” I called.
When there was no reply, I ran to the
comer of the house, where the side gar¬
den would be visible. The fog gulf was
here, too. In the brief space since I had
gazed from my bedroom window, it
seemed to have flooded the earth.
“Arthur! I am coming, Arthur!”
352 WEIRD TALES
She must be in the rear garden, after
all! I rushed back. My bare feet blun¬
dered through a flower bed, but I hardly
knew. There was something in her voice
now that drove a chill to my heart—that
brought back the dreadful moment, hours
before, on the sunlit garden walk, when
she had accused herself of-
I put the thought away from me. My
mother was here. She wanted me. I must
go to her. She had called me.
The moon, hidden for a moment
behind filmy clouds, rode clear, and sil¬
vered the shimmering fog. The ancient
wall was before me, as distinct in that re¬
flected light as if bathed in sunshine. I
stopped short, and stared at it. In the
midst of my bewildered search it appeared
to have something of menace in its grim
outlines.
While I looked numbly, my mother’s
voice came again:
"Arthur! Arthur, dear! I am coming
to you!’’
I saw her.
Her white night-dress, against the sil¬
very background of moonlight and fog,
had cloaked her with invisibility. But I
saw her now!
She was walking on the top of the wall.
She would take a step or two at a time.
She would stop then, and seem to listen;
her hand would go to her forehead—she
was trying to see something in the moon¬
lit night. Then she would venture another
step, listen again, and call.
"I am coming, Arthur!” she said, once
more.
S UDDENLY I understood. My father’s
name, too, had been Arthur. She was
calling to the dead. Why had I not real¬
ized that?
Along with the cold horror which froze
my brain was a keen knowledge of her
danger. The top of the wall was narrow.
In spots the stone had flaked away until
only an inch or two of breadth remained.
Even that scant surface was scarred and
treacherous. Part of the thrill of my for¬
bidden trips on the wall had been the
zest of risking my life.
But I had taken my risks awake and in
the daytime. My mother walked by the
uncertain light of the moon. And she was
asleep. Some subtle quality in her voice
made me sure of that.
I started to scream a frantic warning—
and stopped myself. To wake her now
might mean her death. The haze of the
mind between sleeping and waking—a
step aside—a slip—I was old enough to
sense that danger. Yet even in my instant
of hesitation, she cut down the short dis¬
tance between herself and the sheer drop
at the end of the wall.
I might get help—my uncle. But no.
Too late for that. If I called him from
where I stood, it might wake her. If I
ran back into the house—but why con¬
sider that? There was no time—no time.
I must reach her, myself.
The hall window in the second story
was open. That was how she had reached
the top of the wall. That was why the
wind had followed me down the stairs.
But I could not spare the precious seconds
to go that way. I must climb.
Perhaps by the ivy—I flung into the
thick growth and began to pull myself up.
First, I tried near the house. Though
the vines there were not quite so closely
matted as farther down, the climb was
shorter. A third of the way up, something
broke. I clutched, desperately. Another
section tore loose, and I fell backward,
into the pool of fog.
This was no time to pause for bruises.
I bounced to my feet. The long climb was
best, after all—the climb at the high end,
where the ivy grew thickly. I swayed a
little, pulling my wits together after the
hard fall, and looked up at my mother.
She was near the end. As I looked, she
W. T.—4
 THE ANSWER OF THE DEAD
sobbed the one word, ''Arthur!” and
broke into a little, stumbling run, with
outstretched hands and staring eyes.
"Mother!” I cried, in terror.
I could not possibly reach her in time.
Another half-dozen steps, and she would
be over the brink. I had to wake her.
I screamed to her over and over, putting
all my desperate fear into the call. Still
she ran on jerkily toward death, her hands
extended, her clear, high voice calling!
And then I saw my uncle.
He stood at the window. He was quite
calm. More than that—he was trium¬
phant, How could I tell, with only the
bright moonlight to show me his tall fig¬
ure standing there? I can not say. But I
knew. In my soul, I knew. I was certain,
too, that he had been standing there all
the while, waiting for the tragedy. I felt
that, when he had thrown her into those
strange sleeps, he had commanded this
tiling, over and over, until at last she was
obeying him. He wanted her death!
I had perceived him with one swift
glance, and—so strangely does the mind
even of a boy work at the supreme mo¬
ment—I had instantly dismissed the
thought of appealing to him. My eyes
turned again to my mother.
She stood at the very brink. Her arms
were stretched over vacancy. She called
my father’s name again. Longing and
love were in that call, and the moonlight
showed me the happiness of her face.
The end was at hand; the moment
when the fog-enshrouded stones far below
would receive her. I shut my eyes and
waited dumbly for the crash.
But, instead of that expected sound, I
heard a cry.
It was not from her lips. It was my
uncle.
I opened my eyes again. He stood at
the window, gibbering and pointing. His
voice rose to a scream of terror; a pro-
W. T.—5
353
longed, inhuman cry of mortal fear. I
looked where he pointed.
At first I saw only my mother. She was
at the brink—the very brink. Yet she
had not fallen. Then I saw something
else. Another figure stood beside her on
that narrow ledge, where there barely was
room for one.
It was my father.
My breath came and went in shudder¬
ing sobs. I stared, with no power of
movement except to follow the two fig¬
ures with my eyes, as they slowly retraced
the way she had come. She was still
asleep; she trod with the soft yet sure
footing of the sleep-walker. Sometimes
her steps faltered, but her companion led
her by the hand. She had called the dead.
The dead had answered.
When they reached the open window,
my uncle was not there. They passed
through—she and the shadowy figure
beside her. They were gone. Not till
then did I break from the spell that had
bound me, and race into the house.
I reached the broad staircase—and sud¬
denly stopped. A terrific roar had rever¬
berated through the hall.
There were hurrying footsteps; a
scream. Mrs. Ross's voice, high and
hysterical, was crying something over and
over. At last I caught the words:
“The doctor! The doctor! He’s shot
himself!”
But it was to my mother’s side that I
ran. She was standing awake and very
still, in the upper hall. As I caught her
hand, she seemed to recognize me with a
start, and threw her arms around me.
"He came, Arthur!” she whispered.
"And now I know. I shall never think
again that I . . . that I-”
She had no need to finish. I under¬
stood. And I knew, too, why the wretched
man who lay dead in a near-by room had
been unable to confront his brother’s
spirit.
 of Doom
By BASSETT MORGAN

A thrill-tale of flesh-eating orchids, and a surgical horror that was

consummated on a little island in the South Pacific

W HEN Tom Mansey’s schooner

dropped anchor in the pretty la¬
us and Nell has trained him as a house¬
maid,” he said.
goon and he set out in a small "Bill is away so much of the time fuss¬
boat for shore, he saw the color of a ing with his experiments that I was lone¬
woman’s dress as Nell Evans ran down ly,” Nell said defensively. "I always
the path to meet him, followed a moment spoiled our cats and dogs at home. I
later by her tall husband. trained gold-fish to swim through my fin¬
gers. Our canaries could put on a very
As his boat, sculled by a Tonga boy ot
good entertainment of tricks I taught
his crew, slipped over the clear water and
them. And I couldn’t resist Little Willie.”
tinted coral gardens below, he had time
The ape stood patiently while Evans
to see the amazing improvements that
uncorked the bottle and poured drinks;
Evans had made in a year on the island
then he carried the tray to Nell and Bill
foreshore, hedges of flowering shrubs,
and Mansey.
crushed coral path leading to a pretty
"Making a henpeck and sissy of Little
bungalow built of coral blocks and chunks
Willie saved her teaching me to jump
of lava rock brought from the slope of
when she spoke,” laughed Evans.
that extinct volcano cone which reared its
Mansey did not like the idea of the
brown crest like the cowled head of a
great ape being a companion for Nell
monk brooding in the distance.
Evans, but then he would never have
Then Mansey was startled to see Nell
brought a pretty and intelligent young
Evans emerge from the hedge leading by
wife to this far-away tip of a submerged
one paw a young orang-outang which
mountain peak far out of the track of
shrank closer to her side at the sight of
cargo boats or even native craft which
strangers. In the enthusiastic warmth of
will go anywhere for a price. For undis¬
greetings from Evans and his wife, who
turbed quiet in which Bill Evans could
had not seen a white man since Mansey
pursue his biological and anatomical stu¬
dropped them and their belongings on the
dies it was ideal, fair as a garden of the
island a year ago, the oraing-outang broke
Lord and lacking none of the potential¬
away and scuttled to the house. Mansey
ities of hell. Evans had inherited wealth
was no sooner settled in a porch chair and
enough to make him independent, had
answering the hundreds of questions fired
been a successful surgeon who resented
at him in wistful hunger of exiles ma¬ catering to the usual neurotic crowd
rooned at the back of beyond, than the among a physician’s patients, and broke
orang-outang came from the house carry¬
away to experiment with anatomy in the
ing a tray with glasses and a bottle.
raw.
Bill Evans roared with laughter at The company for which Mansey was a
Mansey’s dumfounded expression. valued free-lance scout, flying squadron
"I caught him the week after you left and riot officer, gave the Evanses into his
354
 ISLAND OF DOOM
charge, and he made a thorough job of
finding a place where they could pursue
Evans’ hobby unmolested.
An hour after he landed Mansey re¬
alized it was not too lonely a place. Bill
Evans took him to a crocodile pool he had
made and furnished with baby muggers,
surrounded by ferns and rock walls that
protected a shallow beach.
Small snouts rested on floating logs or
shore roots. But on shore three little
crocs humped their backs and began to
pick at grain which Evans scattered, then
tried to scratch, for all the world like hens
in a barnyard, making odd noises in their
leathery throats. Mansey laughed and
asked what ailed them, then stared.
"Neither bird nor beast nor good red
herring,” said Bill Evans. "I’ve given a
fowl’s brains to crawling reptiles. It’s a
fact,” he added as Mansey looked incred¬
355
"He teas met by a backward¬
swinging paw that fastened
on his throat."
ulous. "I'd like to try that experiment on
a snake and see it try to stand on its tail
and crow at the rising sun.”
"Kidding me?” Mansey asked.
"Absolutely not. I transplanted hen
brains in those muggers’ heads. Birds
and reptiles are closely related, you know.
I only wish I could live long enough to
set the strain.”
"Bill, you’d better come outside again.
This sort of thing will send you bugs,”
commented Mansey, but Evans smiled.
"Think what surgery could do with
this sort of thing,” he said. "Dink For¬
ster, an old college mate of mine, and I
used to try it with various small animals
until we managed to have them survive
our surgical clumsiness of early days. I’ve
got ideas. Think of planting the brain of
a mongoose in the head of a tiger and
lowering the cobra deaths of India, for
 356 WEIRD TALES
instance. Only the discrepancy in size
must be overcome, smaller tigers or larger
mongooses. Come and see my workshop.
I built it away from the house because
Nell has all a woman’s shrinking from
the surgical art although she is for all I
try to do.”
T hey left the pool by a path which
led toward a blazing wall of crimson
bloom where Little Willie, the young
orang-outang, stood with a basket contain¬
ing chunks of meat from wild pigs.
"Fly-trap orchids,” said Evans, "culti¬
vated and bred for size and ferocity. Nell
trained Little Willie to feed them.”
A stout wall of bamboo supported the
trunks of two vines, but their branches
had swarmed to trees which were smoth¬
ered by the parasitic growth. The flow¬
ers were prodigious monstrosities with a
petal spread of three feet like curved scar¬
let leather, black throats from which came
a lethal stench that Mansey felt in sudden
dizziness despite the sea wind blowing
briskly that morning. The horrible flowers
swayed like the wobbling heads of drome¬
daries or inflated hoods of cobras in the
direction of the ape and his basket of
meat, which his paw tossed in bits to a
black throat. Instantly the petals closed
on the meat with a creak like rubbed
leather, and a dozen other heads snatched
toward that closed maw, their scarlet pet¬
als quivering like the jaw of a cat stalk¬
ing a bird. They even darted at the ape,
which moved nimbly from that touch.
"They can draw blood,” commented
Evans, "as Little Willie found out long
ago. I don’t dare let these things prop¬
agate or they’d kill all animal life on the
island in time. I keep two roots and bum
the branches I cut off. Look at that ape!”
Little Willie was tormenting a cluster
of giant blooms by waving a larger chunk
of meat just beyond their reach. A mass
of flowers shot out and the massive bam¬
boo creaked with the strain before the ape
tossed it and they writhed in horrible
combat close to the parent stem. Little
Willie’s jaws opened in a weird grin and
cackle of monkey mirth. Mansey saw the
stems, thick as a man’s leg, pulsing be¬
tween closed blooms that hung like yel¬
low gourds, as the flesh was absorbed.
"It’s beastly, and I don’t see what it
proves,” said Mansey.
"Every man to his own hobby,” said
Evans. "The orchids are just a whim of
mine. My interest is in animal experi¬
ments and a new outlet for surgery. For
instance, Dink Forster is back there study¬
ing cancer and salvaging a few more
months of life for its victims, prolonging
misery for people afflicted in various ways
and balled because it isn’t half the job a
junkman could do with old automobiles
by taking the good parts and assembling
one workable machine. Think, if we
could take human wrecks and use the best
bits! That’s what my surgery is for.”
He started away and Mansey was glad
to leave the vicinity of the monstrous vam¬
pire flowers to which Little Willie rapidly
tossed the last scraps and left one neglect¬
ed bud foraging in the empty basket he
dropped. He swung after Evans and
Mansey, flying through trees of which
great branches dropped with his weight,
then crashed back when released.
Moist heat on the jungle trail wrapped
their faces like warm wet gauze. Mansey
dripped sweat before they came to the
crater slope cn the foot of which stood a
coral block building with glass walls on
two sides, surrounded by a high fence of
bamboo. In the well-equipped operating-
theater were heavy cot beds smoothly
padded and fitted with many binding
straps, cases of instruments, all the para¬
phernalia of a small hospital surgery, and
two white-coated Chinese bowed politely
as Evans introduced his assistants.
"They attended college in my time,” he
 ISLAND OF DOOM
said, "and shared the brain transplanta¬
tions with Dink Forster and me. Come
and see my latest stunts.” But Mansey
shook his head.
"I don’t like it,” he said frankly.
B ack at the house he bathed and
changed his clothes, then sat on the
porch with Nell Evans until dinner was
prepared by the native servants they had
brought with them to the island. Little
Willie sat puffing a cigarette, apparently
enjoying a smoke. Then his fingers be¬
gan pleating the hem of Nell’s dress.
Mansey remembered his own mother and
other women picking up an apron to pleat
the hem. He noticed after that that every
dress Nell wore had those pleat marks
from the fingers of the ape, which was
devoted to its mistress. He saw Little
Willie sweep and wash dishes, dust a
room, even straighten a framed picture of
Dink Forster which hung on the house
wall.
"You’ve made a girl of Little Willie,”
he commented as the ape laid his head on
Nell’s lap and sighed almost humanly.
"But you should be petting your own son
instead of that creature. And he should
be swinging through trees, frightening
smaller monkeys and picking his own
fleas.”
Nell laughed, but it sounded wistful.
"I daren’t risk a baby here. And I
can’t turn Little Willie loose now. You
know, of course, that wild apes kill one
that has been tamed.”
"Go outside and have a family while
Bill is experimenting,” said Mansey brut¬
ally. "Dance and play, for fear the fate
of tamed monkeys might be imitated
among humans when you do go out.”
"Stop it!” she cried suddenly, passion¬
ately. “Don’t you imagine I have heart¬
aches enough without you reminding me?
Bill will never leave the island. But we
357
need company. I’m tempted to write
Dink Forster and tell him what Bill is
doing. He’d be wild to come. Only-”
"The very thing,” cried Mansey. "His
opinion would be worth something if he
told Bill to cut out this crazy experiment¬
ing and take you outside.”
"No,” she said quietly, lowering her
voice. "Poor Dink! You see, I was once
engaged to Dink. I’m not boasting when
I say he was pretty wild about me. I
eloped with Bill. And if you knew Dink
you’d realize I’m afraid to have them
meet. Dink is the kind that never for¬
gets or forgives. Look!” She led Man¬
sey to his picture on the wall, across which
was written 'Till death. Dink.’ A hand¬
some, clever-looking face, yet passionate
and sensual. Recalling Bill Evans’ lank,
rugged profile, Mansey decided Nell had
been wise to choose Bill and keep the two
men apart.
"Nevertheless I’m so proud of what
Bill’s doing that I’ve written Dink a
bulky letter telling him about it. You’ll
post it for me from Port Moresby, please.”
M ansey left the island with a feeling
of escape from smoldering peril
gathering for a holocaust, a crawling fury
due to Evans’ tampering with natural
forces, a vengeance of beast life hovering
ready to pounce. He would rather have
dropped Nell’s letter in the sea. Some
day he would be bringing out Evans’
widow, and he hoped to God it would not
be too late to save her reason.
For five consecutive years he called with
supplies and came away still more re¬
pulsed with the miracles of Evans' sur¬
gery; then he saw the shadow lower.
Evans wasn’t well. Confidentially he gave
Mansey a letter to Dink Forster, asking
him to come and see what might be done
to ward off inroads of an organic trouble,
and see for himself Evans’ experiments.
358 WEIRD TALES
Perhaps Dink would be enough interested
to stay and work with him, in cases. . . .
"Come outside to a hospital,” urged
Mansey.
"And let this work waste? Not while
I live. But don’t tell Nell. Dink wanted
to marry her, and I won out. She thinks
Dink will have it in for me. But that
was long ago. We outgrow that kind of
disappointments. ’ ’
Mansey again mailed a letter, with fore¬
bodings of trouble. Months later when
he reported to company headquarters,
they told him a man had been waiting five
weeks for his return to take passage on
his schooner for the Evanses’ island. And
when Mansey met Richard Forster, who
could write half the alphabet after his
name, he knew Nell Evans’ instinct had
been intuitive.
"So you’re the man who has kept me
waiting,” he began. "Well, I’ll be on
your boat in an hour.”
"I’ll send word when I’m sailing,” said
Mansey curtly and turned away. Not
even the company dictated in that tone to
Tom Mansey, who knew weather, natives
and perils of that stretch of tropic seas.
What could be done Mansey leaped to do.
If he shook his head the matter dropped.
Perhaps men died, but they would have
died anyway. God seemed far away from
some horrors down there.
In three days he sent his Tonga mate
for Doctor Forster. The schooner would
sail in an hour. When the hour was up
Forster had not come. Mansey breathed
easier and gave orders to lift the mud-
hooks; there was trade along the north
shore he very much wanted to pick up
and delay might give Nell Evans a chance
to marry again outside and dance as a
pretty woman should. Damn these cock¬
sure high-falutin’ nabobs of civilization,
telling Tom Mansey what to do and
when! Let Forster hire a native craft and
swelter in broiling suns at sea, stew under
a low thatch by night and find Evans if
they could.
His vessel was swinging for outer sea
when Forster sauntered to the wharf,
grew excited, waved white duck arms and
long slender hands, then hired a fuzzy-
haired Papuan with a proa to deliver
him on Mansey’s outgoing schooner. It
made intercourse strained, but Mansey was
not a talker. He nursed his pipe, and
his glance told the Tonga boys what to
do. His silence got on Forster’s nerves.
"I’ve been summoned by Evans for
professional services.”
"Naturally,” stated Mansey. Red
crept up Forster’s cheeks.
"You know the Evanses well?”
"Slightly. I call there once a year with
supplies.”
"Ever see their tame orang-outang?”
"Theyit is full of monkeys,” said Man¬
sey and he went below to change into
pajamas, damning Dink Forster. Cold,
calloused exterior. Boiling lava beneath.
Like a volcano oozing a thread of vapor
to show what lay beneath ready to rouse
and blow up everything. Later Forster
said:
"Mansey, I began wrong with you. I
didn’t know you, and I’d waited-”
"Six or seven years,” Mansey finished
amazingly.
"It seemed that long,” Forster laughed
harshly, but it was his last attempt to iron
out the spiked and bristling wall of suspi¬
cion between them.
The weather was fine, the sea by day a
shimmering plane on which wind blew so
gently that it carried spiced land scents.
In the schooner’s shadow they could see
coral and fish. The nights were purple
gauze entangled with low stars. The en¬
gine throb was a thudding heart bur¬
dened with tragedy. Mansey wished he
need not find that tiny dot of an island
among the fly-specks of green earth mot-
 ISLAND OF DOOM
tling those seas. But Nell Evans loved
Bill, and she had been such a gamester. .. .
H is boat arrived in the night, and
they went ashore to where lanterns
hung on the tiny lagoon wharf, and found
Little Willie carrying a light as he stood
beside Nell Evans. She greeted Forster
with a cry that held an eery broken note;
then hunger for sight of some other white
person crowded down her woman’s in¬
stinct.
Evans’ face had changed with the
strides of pain stalking him night and
day, and Forster’s gaze lingered on him
with professional appraisal. Mansey
went to the guest room early and left
them talking of old days, but he was
wakened at the break of silver dawn to
see Forster in pajamas standing beside his
bed.
"Mansey, I’ve a favof to ask. Start
away with me now.”
Mansey considered silently, then shook
his head in refusal. He hated cowards.
Forster had evidently found he still loved
Nell Evans. Let him prove it by saving
Bill’s iife for her.
"Persuade Bill and his wife to go out¬
side with us and I’ll do it,” he countered.
"Honestly, I tried that. They won’t
go"
"Then I don’t see how you can refuse
to help Evans. Isn’t it sort of ethical to
do what you can professionally?”
Forster turned on his heel and left the
room. Nell Evans did not take anything
at breakfast but clear coffee, and she was
forcing her gayety, relating college esca¬
pades gallantly, leading their laughter.
After breakfast Bill and Forster started
for the surgery and Nell sat with Mansey
on the porch, looking like a stricken
woman, with Little Willie pleating her
dress hem until it got on her nerves and
she sent him to feed the vampire orchids
with meat.
359
Mansey followed the ape, watching the
horrid feast of flowers on flesh, hearing
Little Willie’s cackling mirth as he tor¬
mented the blooms which writhed to
reach the tidbit, their stems twisting like
pythons, and those of the fed bulbs closed
on their prey, throbbing in repletion.
Then the ape began cutting upthrust
stem buds from the earth, tuberous and
blanched. He smoothed the earth and
filled his basket with the cuttings, then
swung through the trees toward the hill.
He performed as much work as any three
of the lazy native servants; his body was
full-grown, immensely powerful and his
trained intelligence amazing. Mansey
heard the voices of Evans and Forster at
the crocodile pool, and he joined them,
listening quietly to Forster’s enthusiastic
comments on Evans’ experiments.
For days the two surgeons were to¬
gether in the surgery and at the pool, and
Forster was going even further in brain
transplantations than Evans. Little Wil¬
lie brought small monkeys for their
experiments, and Nell Evans shuddered
when at last she spoke of it to Mansey.
"Tom, I want a trip outside while this
is going on. I haven’t told Bill yet, be¬
cause he hasn’t been well lately, but some¬
thing has happened which makes me
want to go outside for a time. Perhaps
Dink Forster will be interested enough to
stay and go on with this work and Bill
will follow me if I make a home some¬
where else, Sidney or Hongkong. You
see, I’m expecting a baby.”
"Why not tell Bill and take him outside
with you?” Mansey suggested. He was
glad of her decision and this new interest
in her life.
"No. Not yet. Wait till Dink is fas¬
cinated enough to take over the work, and
I have our home ready. Then Bill will
come contentedly, and I won’t feel I’ve
torn him away.”
Mansey thought another reason drove
360 WEIRD TALES
Nell Evans away. Even he could see
plainly the smoldering passion of Forster
for the girl who had once jilted him.
Even the ape sensed it and crouched near
her, growling at Forster and refusing to
make friends, always at his habit of pleat¬
ing the hem of her dress until it got on
Nell's nerves, and in desperation she
hung one of her dresses on a bamboo rack
that stood on the porch, so that the ape
could pleat the fabric of that garment in¬
stead of the one she was wearing.
When Nell spoke of wanting a trip
outside Bill Evans was enthusiastic about
the plan.
"You need a change, Nell. You can
dance and play around.”
"Suppose I liked it so well I didn't re¬
turn, would you come and visit me some¬
times?” she asked, laughingly.
"Don’t tempt me. I never could resist
you,” he teased and pressed his hand to
her cheek. Forster smoked a cigar vehe¬
mently. Then Evans strolled off under
the moon and Forster began:
"Nell mustn’t know, but Bill is a sick
man. I’m glad she is going outside for
her confinement. I’ll try to do something
for Bill while she is gone. She knows
about our experiments and it horrifies her,
so she is better away just now. I don’t
think she should be so much in the power
of that ape. Suppose it turned savage.”
Mansey agreed about the ape. And
two days later when Nell was starting
away with him, the ape seemed to sense
a separation; for he went beside Nell to
the wharf, and when she got into the
small boat to start for the anchored
schooner it flew into a rage, leaping up
and down, grotesquely, screeching its
anger, raced along shore, baffled by the
water it would not enter.
Nell ran below to her cabin, but Man¬
sey stayed on deck watching as Evans
tried to calm the beast. He saw the ape
finally fly toward Forster, who was near
the porch and leaped for a gun standing
against the house wall. The schooner was
too far away for the report of the gun to
sound more than a dull "plup,” but the
succeeding shots from Evans' heavy revol¬
ver, always at his hip, carried clearly.
Mansey could not see the end of the tra¬
gedy. He was glad Nell Evans need not
know what happened.
F our months later he was startled to
find Nell Evans waiting at Port
Moresby for his return. She had estab¬
lished a home in Sidney and was impa¬
tient to see her husband and coax him
away. Mansey begged her not to go to
the island, in vain. She had new and
pretty dresses and looked younger, hap¬
pier, handsomer. He crowded his schoon¬
er for speed and anchored in the island
lagoon just after dawn one morning, tak¬
ing Nell ashore at once.
The boat scarcely touched the sand
beach when the great ape swung down
through the trees and stood staring at
Nell Evans, who called a happy greeting,
then said to Mansey:
"Little Willie has been hurt. Look at
that scar on his head.”
Circling the ape’s skull was a puckered
wound, well healed but visible through
the reddish-brown hair. But the actions
of the animal alarmed Mansey. In a mo¬
ment Nell Evans was seized in its long
arms, held against its great chest, and one
paw tried to stroke her fair hair. She
screamed with terror and Mansey leaped
forward and was met by a backward¬
swinging paw that fastened on his throat,
squeezing until Mansey’s eyes and tongue
protruded, then flinging him half con¬
scious against a tree bole, where he lay
recovering his breath and watching some¬
thing worse than the strangling grip of
that huge paw on his neck.
The ape was not vicious with Nell
Evans. It held her helpless, its face was
 ISLAND OF DOOM
close to hers, its lips moved, and soft yet
uncouth sounds frighteningly like speech
came from deep in its throat in a piteous¬
ly pleading way as again it tried to stroke
her hair. She was too frightened to strug¬
gle, but at its crooning and coaxing
sounds, she closed her eyes, half fainting.
Then the ape got queerly on its knees,
pressed her hand to its cheek and gazed
at her with pathetic agony in its eyes.
Nell tried to regain her control of the
animal:
"Good Little Willie. Go and sweep
the floor. Go and feed the orchids. Good
boy, Willie.”
The ape chattered with desperate in¬
tensity, then dejectedly let her go and
disappeared among the trees. Mansey ran
to Mrs. Evans.
"He frightened me. He never acted
that way before. I’ve been away too
long. Bill and Dink Forster must be at
the surgery and I must see them.”
"Let me go first. The trip is too long
and hot for you,” he begged, and coaxed
her back to the house. He hated to leave
her alone there, and as the morning sun
smote quivering heat about the place and
she saw the neglected condition of her
once pretty home, she consented to go to
the schooner and wait.
M ansey set out through stabbing heat
and glare for the surgery, staring
in amazement, as he went, at a stretch of
scarlet banding the island below the hill
where the ape had doubtless dropped the
cuttings and they had grown amazingly,
blazoning their red trail like blood from
wounds, rooting again and again as they
crept far and wide toward the sea. Al¬
ready trees in their paths were dying. He
saw a bird try to alight and petal jaws close
over it. He saw butterflies engulfed, and
as he stood watching he fqlt a tug at his
foot and saw the yellow backs of petals
clapped about his boot. As he jerked it
361
away a snake wriggled within reach of
one flower that darted at it and caught
the luckless serpent by the middle. Its
head and tail lashed in the deadly trap.
Mansey was already reeling from the leth¬
al emanations of the flowers and hurried
on to where the white building stood, its
gate latched.
The ape had scattered red doom that
would devour all animal life, smother
foliage, denude the island of all living
things and leave only sun-baked earth on
which lascivious and obscene stems
writhed nakedly as pallid serpents among
the devouring crests of doom. He was
thinking of that when he reached the
surgery door and a Chinese met him, then
called Forster.
"You here again, Mansey?” he said in
evident surprize.
"Mrs. Evans insisted on seeing her hus¬
band,” said Mansey. "She is waiting on
the schooner.”
"Nell here! . . . Then keep her on
the schooner. Bill isn’t able to see any
one yet, though he’s recovering nicely.”
Something strengthened Mansey’s feel¬
ing of peril.
"Let me see him anyway,” he said in a
voice that carried command, and shoved
past Forster.
In a shaded room the sick man lay on a
cot, chattering queerly to himself. As
the white-robed Chinese attendant came
near he grabbed at the hem of his surgical
robe and began pleating it. Mansey's
flesh crawled. At sight of him Evans was
off the cot bandy-legged, though he had
been a man who walked very erect, jum¬
ping up and down grotesquely, peering
into Mansey’s face, chattering horridly
like an ape!
An exclamation broke from Mansey
and he stared at Forster, who met his
gaze with dangerous boldness.
"You knew Evans was a sick man,
Mansey. Well, I operated. I arrested
362 WEIRD TALES
his disease awhile. But he isn’t the same
man he was before, as you can see.”
"Yes, I can see. But I can’t believe
what I see,” said Mansey, trying to con¬
trol an impulse to dash from the place, up
anchor and sail far away and never re¬
turn. For around the head of the man
leaping and prancing at his side v/as the
same sort of puckered wound as that on
the head of the ape.
Horror tapped at Mansey’s brain. He
turned from Evans to Forster, and Evans
slyly bolted for the door and was gone,
with both Chinese after him. Forster
followed, and Mansey overtook him. He
was watching Evans’ attempt to catch tree
branches and swing himself aloft. He
fell, uttering queer ape noises, tripped
on vines and brush, but managed to elude
his pursuers on the trail to the house,
where they finally found him lying ex¬
hausted on the mat in the kitchen where
the ape used to sleep!
Mansey reached the house and was in
the kitchen when Forster arrived, but For¬
ster quailed before the outraged emotions
glaring from the eyes of Tom Mansey.
"I’m glad Mrs. Evans stayed on my
ship,” he said. "You’ve let all hell loose
on this island, but your punishment will
be certain. I’m leaving here with Mrs.
Evans. I’ll tell her Bill is dead.”
"Oh no, you won’t take Nell Evans
away,” yelled Forster, and the names he
called Mansey interested even that port-
hardened sea captain. "You had your
chance to horn into this affair. I asked
you to take me out the first morning I
came here and you wouldn’t. You knew
why I didn’t want to stay, damn you. You
said as much. Said I’d waited six years.
And I had. But Bill Evans didn’t wait.
He brought my girl to the ends of the
earth and hid her here. He was afraid of
me. He thought he wasn’t and he went
under the ether for his operation still per¬
suading himself he wasn’t afraid of me.
But he knew his body was doomed any¬
way. But I’ve prolonged his span of life.
He’ll have time to realize the hell I’ve en¬
dured thinking of Nell with him. He’ll
have a chance to know how I felt, sep¬
arated from her. Only with Nell and me
the separation was geographical. With
Nell and Bill it’s biological!” Forster’s
laughter began in a wicked chuckle that
gathered noise and evil and rose in a
gusty frenzy of demoniac triumphant
sound.
"Stop it!” yelled Mansey. "You’re
crazy. You’re losing your mind here on
this island.”
Then he stared as the door opened and
out came the body that had been Evans’.
A silly grin slit its mouth, its hands car¬
ried a tray with bottle and glasses in a
slovenly fashion which he rescued from
crashing. Then it sat on the porch and
plucked at the faded dress belonging to
Nell and still hanging there. Mansey
gaped, as its fingers began to pleat the
hem of the dress.
He was so fascinated watching that ape
trick of hands that had belonged to a man
he liked and respected that he saw noth¬
ing as Forster slipped a revolver from his
pocket, gripped the nose and swung the
butt on Mansey’s head. Mansey dropped
like a felled ox.
He awakened on a cot of the sur¬
gery, bound tightly to the bed from
ankles to breast, unable to move hands or
feet. Exceeding bright lights illumined
the place, though the windows were dark
except for low-burning tropic stars. For¬
ster and the two Chinese moved about,
clad in their white surgical gowns, faces
masked with gauze, fussing with instru¬
ments.
Mansey’s head throbbed. He tried to
turn it and found it adhering to the cot
by dried blood where the gun-butt cracked
 ISLAND OF DOOM
the skin. Forster came and stood beside
the cot.
"Awake now, Mansey? That’s good.
It’s ethical to get the patient’s consent be¬
fore operating.”
"Let me out of this. I don’t need an
operation, though you would if I get my
hands on you.”
"Brain injured, beyond a doubt.” For¬
ster laughed wickedly. His slender fin¬
gers were working a hypodermic in a
glass of liquid. "But the success we made
exchanging the brains of Bill Evans and
the ape tempts me to go further. As you
know, Mansey, it was Evans’ pet theory
that surgery would some day make pos¬
sible the assembling of the best parts of
several humans otherwise ready to be
junked, and make one workable man. I
agree with Bill that it was a noble idea.
His body is doomed. I’ve put his brain
in the stalwart chassis of the great ape, or
as you sailors call it, Bill’s engine occupies
another hull. He’s out there now, swing¬
ing through the trees as his ancient fore¬
bears did, and we may come back here
some day and see an orang-outang opera¬
ting on littler monkeys in this well-
equipped little surgery. But in the body
of Evans, Little Willie is doomed, and
he was a well-trained beast. Now your
skull-pan is all right, but you must admit
you are only a casual type. The world is
full of roaming sailors, and you haven’t
even a wife waiting for you. No one will
mind what happens. And I’ll prove that
Little Willie’s brain in your skull will do
his tricks and sail a ship as well as you
do, so even your company won’t know the
difference.”
Mansey strained at his bonds. He
cursed the sneering smile of Forster. The
solidly built cot creaked with his writhing.
“Easy now, Mansey, while I give you a
shot.”
He came with the hypodermic needle.
Mansey turned agonized eyes to the win¬
363
dow, and then his struggles subsided. In
the outer darkness were stars, and lower
down against the glass a face looked in at
a cot where a Chinese was fitting an ether
cone over the face of what had been Bill
Evans. Mansey caught the ether fumes
as the other Chinese dripped it into the
cone. He heard a roar from tne ape’s
throat, and Mansey yelled at the top of
his lungs:
"Bill, Bill, help!”
There was a crash of glass as the ape
with the man’s brain swung a cudgel on
the window, battering it in, scattering
broken glass. The two Chinese left their
victim and fled screeching to the door.
A yell of terror broke from Forster’s
throat as the huge form of an orang¬
outang broke into the room and caught
him in one hand around his throat while
the other ripped the heavy linen bands
holding Mansey to tire cot.
Mansey’s arms were free. The ape
creature tossed him a surgical knife, and
he was slashing at the remaining bonds,
hearing the terrible cries of Forster as the
orang-outang lifted him to the operating-
table and bound him fast, then caught up
a knife.
Mansey fled, hearing the cries of agon¬
ized terror from the surgery as he darted
into the darkness. Screech after screech
of agony filled his ears, and as he passed
the window he saw the ape hand wielding
a knife that made a shambles of table and
floor and the body of Forster. But Man¬
sey was running as he never ran before,
making for the wharf, panting for breath.
He fell into the small boat on the beach
and somehow pulled it to the schooner
just as the first streaks of pearl dawn light
flowed over the sea.
On deck he wakened the sleeping na¬
tive crew and gave orders to lift the
anchor, and as the ship slowly swung
about and made for the reef jaws, he saw
coming down the path the hunched and
364 WEIRD TALES

sorrowful figure of the orang-outang. It
came to the wharf and looked after his
ship with its body a slumping and hope¬
less travesty of strength and brute force.
Nell Evans was wakened by the clank
of anchor chains and came on deck.
"Bill is dead,” Mansey said in answer
to her startled cry.
He knew Bill Evans would want her to
believe he died, and when she turned
away in sudden grief and went to her
cabin to be alone in that first hour of
utter bereavement, Mansey saw the ape
wave his hand in a human gesture of
farewell, then walk to the end of the nar¬
row plank wharf and plunge over and
down to the coral gardens and waiting
tridacna jaws that close at a touch and
hold their prey. He knew that the soul
of Bill Evans had escaped from the ape’s
body, just as he knew this island of hor¬
ror would soon be overgrown with sin¬
ister orchids, and presently be a sun-baked
lifeless rock, dreary as craters of the moon.

lanet of the Dead

By CLARK ASHTON SMITH

A unique story of star-gazing—a bizarre tale of life in two planets and

the splendors of a far world

B 1

Y PROFESSION, Francis Melchior

was a dealer in antiques; by avo¬
cation, he was an astronomer.
Thus he contrived to placate, if not to
satisfy, two needs of a somewhat complex
and unusual temperament. Through his
occupation, he gratified in a measure his
craving for all things that have been
steeped in the mortuary shadows of dead
ages, in the dusky amber flames of long-
sunken suns; all things that have about
them the irresoluble mystery of departed
time. And through his avocation, he
found a ready path to exotic realms in
further space, to the only spheres where
his fancy could dwell in freedom and his
dreams could know contentment. For
Melchior was one of those who are born
with an immedicable distaste for all that
is present or near at hand; one of those
who have drunk too lightly of oblivion
and have not wholly forgotten the trans¬
cendent glories of other eons, and the
worlds from which they were exiled into
human birth; so that their furtive, rest¬
less thoughts and dim, unquenchable
longings return obscurely toward the van¬
ishing shores of a lost heritage. The
earth is too narrow for such, and the com¬
pass of mortal time is too brief; and
paucity and barrenness are everywhere;
and in all places their lot is a never-end¬
ing weariness.
With a predisposition ordinarily so
fatal to the acquisitive faculties, it was
indeed remarkable that Melchior should
have prospered at all in his business. His
love of ancient things, of rare vases,
paintings, furniture, jewels, idols and
statues, made him readier to buy than to
sell; and his sales were too often a source
 THE PLANET OF THE DEAD
doom the astronomers had foretold."
of secret heart-ache and regret. But some¬
how, in spite of all this, he had managed
to attain a degree of financial comfort.
By nature, he was something of a solitary,
and was generally looked upon as eccen¬
tric. He had never cared to marry; he
had made no intimate friends; and he
lacked many of the interests, which, in
the eyes of the average person, are sup¬
posed to characterize a normal human be-
ing.
Melchior’s passion for antiquities and
his devotion to the stars, both dated
from his childhood days. Now, in his
thirty-first year, with increasing leisure
and prosperity, he had turned an upper
balcony of his suburban hill-top house
into an amateur observatory. Here, with
365
a new and powerful telescope, he studied
the summer heavens night after night.
He possessed little talent and less incli¬
nation for those recondite mathematical
calculations which form so large a part
of orthodox astronomy; but he had an
intuitional grasp of the heavenly immen-
situdes, a mystic sensitivity toward all that
is far off in space. His imagination
roamed and adventured among the suns
and nebulae; and for him, each tiny gleam
of telescopic light appeared to tell its
own story and invite him toward its own
unique realm of ultramundane fantasy.
He was not greatly concerned with the
names which astronomers have given to
particular stars and constellations; but
nevertheless, each of them possessed for
366 WEIRD TALES
him a separate individuality not to be
mistaken for that of any other.
In especial, Melchior was drawn by
one minute star in a wide-flung constella¬
tion south of the Milky Way. It was
barely discernible to the naked eye; and
even through his telescope, it gave an im¬
pression of cosmic solitude and remote¬
ness such as he had never felt in any
other orb. It allured him more than the
moon-surrounded planets or the first-
magnitude stars with their flaming spectra;
and he returned to it again and again,
forsaking for its lonely point of light the
marvelous manifold rings of Saturn and
the cloudy zone of Venus and the intricate
colls of the great nebula of Andromeda.
Musing through many midnights on
the attraction the star held for him, Mel¬
chior reasoned that in its narrow ray was
the whole emanation of a sun and per¬
haps of a planetary system; that the sec¬
ret of foreign worlds and even something
of their history was implicit in that light,
if one could only read the tale. And he
longed to understand, and to know the
far-woven thread of affinity which drew
his attention so perennially to this particu¬
lar orb. On each occasion when he looked,
his brain was tantalized by obscure inti¬
mations of loveliness and wonder that
were still a little beyond the reach of his
boldest reveries, of his wildest dreams.
And each time, they seemed a trifle nearer,
and more attainable than before. And a
strange, indeterminate expectancy began
to mingle with the eagerness that prompt¬
ed his evening visits to the balcony.
One midnight, when he was peering
through the telescope, he fancied that the
star looked a little larger and brighter than
usual. Unable to account for this, in a
mounting excitement he stared more in¬
tently than ever; and was suddenly seized
by the unnatural idea that he was peering
downward into a vast, vertiginous abyss,
rather than toward the zenithal heavens.
He felt that the balcony was no longer
beneath his feet, but had somehow be¬
come inverted; and then, all at once, he
was falling from it into the headlong
ether, with a million thunders and flames
about and behind him. For a brief while,
he still seemed to see the star he had
been -watching, far down in the terrible
Cimmerian void; and then he forgot, and
could find it no more. There was the
sickness of incalculable descent, an ever-
swiftening torrent of vertigo not to be
borne; and after moments or eons (he
could not tell which) the thunders and
flames died out in ultimate darkness, in
utmost silence; and he no longer knew
that he was falling, and no longer re¬
tained any sort of sentiency.
2
hen Melchior returned to con¬
sciousness, his first impulse was
to clutch the arm of the chair in which
he had been sitting beneath the telescope.
It was the involuntary movement of one
who has fallen in a dream. In a mo¬
ment he realized the absurdity of this
impulse; for he was not sitting in a chair
at all; and his surroundings bore no man¬
ner of resemblance to the nocturnal bal¬
cony on which he had been seized by a
strange vertigo, and from which he had
seemed to fall and lose himself.
He was standing on a road paven with
cyclopean blocks of gray stone—a road
that ran interminably before him into the
vague, tremendous vistas of an incon¬
ceivable world. There wTere low, funer¬
eal, drooping trees along the road, with
sad-colored foliage and fruits of a deathly
violet; and beyond the trees were range
on range of monumental obelisks, of ter¬
races and domes, of colossal multiform
piles, that reached away in endless, count¬
less perspectives toward an indistinct ho¬
rizon. Over all, from an ebon-purple zen¬
ith, there fell in rich, unlustrous rays the
 THE PLANET OF THE DEAD
illumination of a blood-red sun. The
forms and proportions of the labyrinthin
mass of buildings were unlike anything
that has been designed in terrestrial archi¬
tecture; and, for an instant, Melchior was
overwhelmed by their number and mag¬
nitude, by their monstrosity and bizarre-
rie. Then, as he looked once more, they
were no longer monstrous, no longer
bizarre; and he knew them for what they
were, and knew the world upon whose
road his feet were set, and the destina¬
tion he was to seek, and the part he was
fated to play. It all came back to him
as inevitably as the actual deeds and im¬
pulses of life return to one who has
thrown himself obliviously for a while
into some dramatic role that is foreign to
his real personality. The incidents of his
existence as Francis Melchior, though he
still recalled them, had become obscure
and meaningless and grotesque in the re¬
awakening of a fuller state of entity, with
all its train of recovered reminiscences,
of revived emotions and sensations. There
was no strangeness, only the familiarity
of a homecoming, in the fact that he had
stepped into another condition of being,
with its own environment, with its own
past, present and future, all of which
would have been incognizably alien to the
amateur astronomer who had peered a
few moments before at a tiny star remote
in sidereal space.
"Of course, I am Antarion,'’ he mused.
"Who else could I be?" The language
of his thoughts was not English, nor any
earthly tongue; but he was not surprized
by his knowledge of this language; nor
was he surprized when he looked down
and saw that he was attired in a costume
of somber moth-like red, of a style un¬
known to any human people or epoch.
This costume, and certain differences in
his physical personality that would have
appeared rather odd a little previously,
were quite as he expected them to be.
367
He gave them only a cursory glance, as he
reviewed in his mind the circumstances
of the life he had now resumed.
He, Antarion, a renowned poet of the
land of Charmalos, in the elder world
that was known to its living peoples by
the name of Phandiom, had gone on a
brief journey to a neighboring realm. In
the course of this journey, a distressing
dream had befallen him—the dream of
a tedious, unprofitable life as one Francis
Melchior, in a quite unpleasant and pe¬
culiar sort of planet, lying somewhere on
the further side of the universe. He was
unable to recall exactly when and where
he had been beset by this dream; and he
had no idea how long it had lasted: but
at any rate, he was glad to be rid of it,
and glad that he was now approaching
his native city of Saddoth, where dwelt
in her dark and splendid palace of past
eons the beautiful Thameera, whom he
loved. Now, once more, after the obscure
clouding of that dream, his mind was
full of the wisdom of Saddoth; and his
heart was illumed by a thousand memo¬
ries of Thameera; and was darkened at
whiles by an old anxiety concerning her.
Not without reason had Melchior been
fascinated by things antique and by things
that are far away. For the world wherein
he walked as Antarion was incomputably
old, and the ages of its history were too
many for remembrance; and the towering
obelisks and piles along the paven road
were the high tombs, the proud monu¬
ments of its immemorial dead, who had
come to outnumber infinitely the living.
In more than the pomp of earthly kings,
the dead were housed in Phandiom; and
their cities loomed insuperably vast, with
never-ending streets and prodigious spires,
above those lesser abodes wherein the liv¬
ing dwelt. And throughout Phandiom
the bygone years were a tangible pres¬
ence, an air that enveloped all; and the
people were steeped in the crepuscular
£68 WEIRD TALES
gloom of antiquity; and were wise with
all manner of accumulated lore; and were
subtle in the practise of strange refine¬
ments, of erudite perversities, of all that
can shroud with artful opulence and grace
and variety the bare uncouth cadaver of
life, or hide from mortal vision the leer¬
ing skull of death. And here, in Sad-
doth, beyond the domes and terraces and
columns of the huge necropolis, like a
necromantic flower wherein forgotten lil¬
ies live again, there bloomed the superb
and sorrowful loveliness of Thameera.
3 numerable dead was everywhere; and evil
M elchior, in his consciousness as
the poet Antarion, was unable to
remember a time when he had not loved
Thameera. She had been an ardent pas¬
sion, an exquisite ideal, a mysterious de¬
light and an enigmatic grief. He had
adored her implicitly through all the se-
lenic changes of her moods, in her child¬
ish- petulance, her passionate or maternal
tenderness, her sybilline silence, her merry
or macabre whims; and most of all, per¬
haps, in the obscure sorrows and terrors
that overwhelmed her at times.
He and she were the last representa¬
tives of noble ancient families, whose
untabulated lineage was lost in the crowd¬
ed cycles of Phandiom. Like all others
of their race, they were embued with the
heritage of a complex and decadent cul¬
ture; and upon their souls the never-lift¬
ing shadow of the necropoli had fallen
from birth. In the life of Phandiom, in
its atmosphere of elder time, of eon-
developed art, of epicureanism consum¬
mate and already a little moribund, Anta¬
rion had found an ample satisfaction for
all the instincts of his being. He had
lived as an intellectual sybarite; and by
virtue of a half-primitive vigor, had not
yet fallen upon the spiritual exhaustion
and desolation, the dread implacable en¬
nui of racial senescence, that marked so
many of his fellows.
Thameera was even more sensitive,
more visionary by nature; and hers was
the ultimate refinement that is close to
an autumnal decay. The influences of
the past, which were a source of poetic
fruition to Antarion, were turned by her
delicate nerves to pain and languor, to
horror and oppression. The palace where¬
in she lived, and the very streets of Sad-
doth, were filled for her with emanations
that welled from the sepulchral reservoirs
of death; and the weariness of the in¬
or opiate presences came forth from the
mausolean vaults, to crush and stifle her
with the formless brooding of their wings.
Only in the arms of Antarion could she
escape them; and only in his kisses could
she forget.
Now, after his journey (whose reason
he could not quite remember) and after
the curious dream in which he had im¬
agined himself as Francis Melchior, An¬
tarion was once more admitted to the
presence of Thameera by slaves who were
invariably discreet, being tongueless. In
the oblique light of beryl and topaz win¬
dows, in the mauve and crimson gloom
of heavy-folded tapestries, on a floor of
marvelous mosaic wrought in ancient
cycles, she came forward languidly to
greet him. She was fairer than his mem¬
ories, and paler than a blossom of the
catacombs. She was exquisitely frail, vo¬
luptuously proud, with hair of a lunar
gold and eyes of nocturnal brown that
were pierced by fluctuating stars and cir¬
cled by the dark pearl of sleepless nights.
Beauty and love and sadness exhaled from
her like a manifold perfume.
"I am glad you have come, Antarion,
for I have missed you.” Her voice was
as gentle as an air that is born among
flowering trees, and melancholy as re¬
membered music.
 THE PLANET OF THE DEAD
Antarion would have knelt, but she
took him by the hand and led him to a
couch beneath the intricately figured cur¬
tains. There the lovers sat and looked at
each other in affectionate silence.
"Are all things well with you, Tham-
eera?” The query was prompted by the
anxious divination of love.
"No, all things are not well. Why
did you go away? The wings of death
and darkness are abroad, they hover more
closely than ever; and shades more fear¬
ful than those of the past have fallen
upon Saddoth. There have been strange
perturbations in the aspect of the skies;
and our astronomers, after much study
and calculation, have announced the im¬
minent doom of the sun. There remains
to us but a single month of light and
warmth, and then the sun will go out on
the noontide heavens like an extinguished
lamp, and eternal night will fall, and the
chill of outer space will creep across
Phandiom. Our people have gone mad
with the predicted horror; and some of
them are sunk in despairing apathy, and
more have given themselves to frenzied
revels and debaucheries. . . . Where have
you been, Antarion? In what dream did
you lose yourself, that you could forsake
me so long?”
Antarion tried to comfort her. "Love
is still ours,” he said. "And even if the
astronomers have read the skies aright,
we have a month before us. And a month
is much.”
"Yes, but there are other perils, An¬
tarion. Haspa the king has looked upon
me with eyes of senile desire, and woos
me assiduously with gifts, with vows and
with threats. It is the sudden, inexorable
whim of age and ennui, the caprice of
desperation. He is cruel, he is relentless,
he is all-powerful.”
"I will take you away,” said Antarion.
"We will flee together, and dwell among
the sepulchers and the ruins, where none
369
can find us. And love and ecstasy shall
bloom like flowers of scarlet beneath their
shadow; and we will meet the everlasting
night in each other’s arms; and thus we
will know the utmost of mortal bliss.”
4
B eneath the black midnight that hung
above them like an imminence of
colossal, unremoving wings, the streets
of Saddoth were aflare with a million
lights of yellow and cinnabar and cobalt
and purple. Along the vast avenues, the
gorge-deep alleys, and in and out of the
stupendous olden palaces, temples and
mansions, there poured the antic revelry,
the tumultuous merriment of a night-long
masquerade. Every one was abroad, from
Haspa the king and his sleek, sybaritic
courtiers, to the lowliest mendicants and
pariahs; and a rout of extravagant, un¬
heard-of costumes, a melange of fantasies
more various than those of an opium
dream, seethed and eddied everywhere.
As Thameera had said, the people were
mad with the menace of doom foretold
by the astronomers; and they sought to
forget, in a swift and ever-mounting de¬
lirium of all the senses, their dread of the
nearing night.
Late in the evening, Antarion left by
a postern door the tall and gloomy man¬
sion of his forefathers, and wended his
way through the hysteric whirling of the
throng toward Thameera’s palace. He
was garbed in apparel of an antique style,
such as had not been worn for a score
of centuries in Phandiom; and his whole
head and face were enveloped in a painted
mask designed to represent the peculiar
physiognomy of a people now extinct. No
one could have recognized him; nor could
he, on his part, have recognized many of
the revellers he met, no matter how well-
known to him, for most of them were
disguised in apparel no less outre, and
wore masks that were whimsical or ab-
370 WEIRD TALES
surd, or loathsome or laughable beyond
conception. There were devils and em¬
presses and deities, there were kings and
necromancers from all the far, unfath-
omed ages of Phandiom, there were mon¬
sters of mediaeval or prehistoric types,
there were things that had never been
born or beheld except in the minds of
insane decadent artists, seeking to surpass
the abnormalities of nature.. Even the
tomb had been drawn upon for inspira¬
tion, and shrouded mummies, worm-
gnawed cadavers, promenaded among the
living. All these masks were the screen
of an orgiastic license without precedent
or parallel.
All the needful preparations for flight
from Saddoth had been made; and An-
tarion had left minute and careful in¬
structions with his servants regarding cer¬
tain essential matters. He knew from of
old the ruthless, tyrannic temperament of
Haspa, knew that the king would brook
no opposition to the indulgence of any
whim or passion, no matter how momen¬
tary. There was no time to be lost in
leaving the city with Thameera.
He came by winding devious ways to
the garden behind Thameera’s palace.
There, among the high and spectral lilies
of deep or ashen hues, the bowed funereal
trees with their fruit of subtle and opiate
savor, she awaited him, clad in a costume
whose antiquity matched his own, and
which was no less impenetrable to recog¬
nition. After a brief murmur of greeting,
they stole forth together from the garden
and joined the oblivious throng. Anta-
rion had feared that Thameera might be
watched by the henchmen of Haspa; but
there was no evidence of such watching,
no one in sight who seemed to lurk or
loiter; only the swift movement of an
ever-changing crowd, preoccupied with
the quest of pleasure. In this crowd, he
felt that they were safe.
However, through a scrupulous caution,
they allowed themselves to be carried
along for awhile in the tide of the city’s
revel, before they sought the long arterial
avenue that led to the gates. They joined
in the singing of fescennine songs, they
returned the bachannalian jests that were
flung by passers-by, they drank the wines
that were proffered them by public urn-
bearers, they tarried when the throng tar¬
ried, moved when it moved.
Everywhere, there were wildly flaming
lights, and the ribaldry of loud voices,
and the strident moan or feverous pulsing
of musical instruments. There was feast¬
ing in the great squares, and the doorways
of immemorial houses poured out a flood
of illumination, a tumult of laughter and
melody, as they offered their hospitality
to all who might choose to enter them.
And in the huge temples of former eons,
delirious rites were done to the gods who
stared forth with unchanging eyes of
stone and metal to the hopeless heavens;
and the priests and worshippers drugged
themselves with terrible opiates, and
sought the stupefying ecstasy of abandon¬
ment to an hysteria both carnal and de¬
vout.
At length Antarion and Thameera, by
unobtrusive stages, by many windings
and turnings, began to approach the gates
of Saddoth, For the first time in their
history, these gates were unguarded; for,
in the general demoralization, the senti¬
nels had stolen away without fear of de¬
tection or reproof, to join the universal
orgy. Here, in the outlying quarter, there
were few people, and only the scattered
flotsam of the revels; and the broad open
space between the last houses and the city
wall was utterly abandoned. No one saw
the lovers when they slipped like evanes¬
cent shadows through the grim yawning
of the gates, and followed the gray road
into an outer darkness thronged with the
dim bulks of mausoleums and monu¬
ments.
 THE PLANET OF THE DEAD
Here, the stars that had been blinded
by the flaring lights of Saddoth were clear¬
ly visible in the burnt-out sky. And pres¬
ently, as the lovers went on, the two small
ashen moons of Phandiom arose from
behind the necropoli, and flung the de¬
spairing languor of their faint beams on
the multitudinous domes and minarets of
the dead. And beneath the twin moons,
that drew their uncertain light from a
dying sun, Antarion and Thameera doffed
their masks, and looked at each other in
a silence of unutterable love, and shared
the first kiss of their month of ultimate
delight.
5 content.
F or two days and nights, the lovers
had fled from Saddoth. They had
hidden by daylight among the mauso¬
leums, they had traveled in darkness
and by the doubtful glimmering of the
moons, on roads that were little used,
since they ran only to age-deserted cities
lying in the ulterior tracts of Charmalos,
in a land whose very soil had long be¬
come exhausted, and was now given over
to the stealthy encroachment of the des¬
ert. And now they had come to their
journey’s end; for, mounting a low, tree¬
less ridge, they saw below them the ruin¬
ous and forgotten roofs of Urbyzaun,
which had lain unpeopled for more than
a thousand years; and beyond the roofs,
the black unlustrous lake surrounded by
bills of bare and wave-corroded rock, that
had once been the inlet of a great sea.
Here, in the crumbling palace of the
emperor Altanoman, whose high, tumul¬
tuous glories were now a failing legend,
the slaves of Antarion had preceded
them, bringing a supply of food and such
comforts and luxuries as they would re¬
quire in the interim before oblivion. And
here they were secure from all pursuit;
for Haspa, in the driven fever and goaded
ennui of his last days, had doubtless
371
turned to the satisfying of some other
and less difficult caprice, and had already
forgotten Thameera.
And now, for the lovers, began the
life that was a brief epitome of all pos¬
sible delight and despair. And, strangely
enough, Thameera lost the vague fears
that had tormented her, the dim sorrows
that had obsessed, and was wholly happy
in the caresses of Antarion. And, since
there was so little time in which to ex¬
press their love, to share their thoughts,
their sentiments, their reveries, there was
never enough said or enough done be¬
tween them; and both were blissfully
But the swift, relentless days went by;
and day by day, the red sun that circled
above Phandiom was darkened by a tinge
of the coming shadow; and chillness stole
upon the quiet air; and the still heavens,
where never clouds or winds or bird-
wings passed, were ominous of doom.
And day by day, Antarion and Thameera
saw the dusking of the sun from a ruinous
terrace above the dead lake; and night
by night, they saw the paling of the ghost¬
ly moons. And their love became an in¬
tolerable sweetness, a thing too deep and
dear to be borne by mortal heart or mor¬
tal flesh.
Mercifully, they had lost the strict
count of time, and knew not the number
of days that had passed, and thought that
several more dawns and noons and eves
of joyance were before them. They were
lying together on a couch in the old pal¬
ace—a marble couch that the slaves had
strewn with luxurious fabrics—and were
saying over and over some litany of love,
when the sun was overtaken at high noon
by the doom astronomers had foretold;
when a slow twilight filled the palace,
heavier than the umbrage wrought by any
cloud, and was followed by a sudden
wave of overwhelming ebon darkness,
372 WEIRD TALES

and the creeping cold of outer space. The
slaves of Antarion moaned in the dark¬
ness; and the lovers knew that the end
of all was at hand; and they clung to
each other in despairing rapture, with
swift, innumerable kisses, and murmured
the supreme ecstasy of their tenderness
and their desire; till the cold that had
fallen from infinitude became a growing
agony, and then a merciful numbness,
and then an all-encompassing oblivion.
6 a double sorrow; and, though he has
F rancis melchior awoke in his chair
beneath the telescope. He shivered,
for the air had grown chill; and when
he moved, he found that his limbs were
strangely stiff, as if he had been exposed
to a more rigorous cold than that of the
late summer night. The long and curious
dream that he had undergone was inex¬
pressibly real to him; and the thoughts,
the desires, the fears and despairs of An¬
tarion were still his. Mechanically, rather
than through any conscious renewal of
the impulses of his earthly self, he fixed
his eye to the telescope and looked for
the star he had been studying when the
premonitory vertigo had seized him. The
configuration of the skies had hardly
changed, the surrounding constellation
was still high in the southeast; but, with
a shock that became a veritable stupefac¬
tion, he saw that the star itself had dis¬
appeared.
Never, though he searched the heavens
night after night through the alternation
of many seasons, has he been able to find
again the little far-off orb that drew him
so inexplicably and irresistibly. He bears
grow old and gray with the lentor of
fruitless years, with the buying and sell¬
ing of antiques and the study of the stars,
Francis Melchior is still a little doubtful
as to which is the real dream: his lifetime
on earth, or the month in Phandiom be¬
low a dying sun, when, as the poet An¬
tarion, he loved the superb and sorrowful
beauty of Thameera. And always he is
troubled by a dull regret that he should
ever have awakened (if awakening it
was) from the death that he died in the
palace of Altanoman, with Thameera in
his arms and Thameera's kisses on his
lips.

ath
By WILFRED BLANCH TALMAN

A stately ship stands in the offing now,

Out past the reef where broken waves are drumming,
Her sails lit up with sun, bright gilded prow,
And rigging taut through which the breeze is humming.
Some day another ship is coming;
No breath of wind shall whisper through her spars,
And I, through phantom sails, shall view the stars.
 ^^)eviTs Bride
By SEABURY QUINN

An astounding novel of the devil-worshipping Yezidees, foul murder,

and the infamous Black Mass

The Story Thus Far noise that produced a peculiar effect on

EAUTIFUL Alice Hume vanished
during the final rehearsal for her
wedding in the presence of her
mother, her fiance, John Davisson, and a
group of friends that included her family
physician, Doctor Samuel Trowbridge,
and Trowbridge’s eccentric associate, the
French physician-detective, Doctor Jules
de Grandin. The disappearance was pre¬
ceded by a strange, far-away whistling
the nerves of the wedding party. This
was followed by a crash as one of the
church windows was shattered to admit
a cloud of billowing yellow haze. When
the ha2e cleared, the bride-to-be was gone.
De Grandin discovered traces of a yel¬
low powder which, he explained to Trow¬
bridge, was bulala-gwai, the "little death”
used by the natives of the French Congo
to produce temporary paralysis. Alice, he
373
374 WEIRD TALES
declared, had been abducted while the
wedding party was rendered unconscious
by bulala-gwai.
This theory was associated by de Gran-
din with an occult message Alice had re¬
peatedly received through a ouija board,
a message that persistently spelled:
"A-L-I-C-E C-O-M-E H-O-M-E.”
De Grandin also believed the disap¬
pearance to be connected with a barbaric
girdle he had noticed and admired on
Alice. The girl told him the belt be¬
longed to the mysterious, foreign bride of
her ancestor, David Hume; that it was
known as "the luck of the Humes” and
that according to legend it brought luck
to Hume women who wore it on their
wedding-gowns. De Grandin informed
Trowbridge, however, that the leather
portion of the girdle was made of human
skin and that he had seen similar belts
among the Yezidees in Kurdistan.
On their way to join the other search¬
ers at the Hume home, Trowbridge and
de Grandin were accosted by a beautiful,
exotic woman who told them: "If you’re
looking for some one, you’ll save time and
trouble by abandoning the search and go¬
ing home. She laughed and drove away
in her roadster.
At de Grandin’s insistence, Alice’s
mother produced the family Bible in
which the records of the Humes had been
kept. A concealed document was dis¬
closed, written by David Hume and relat¬
ing how he had been sold as a slave to the
Yezidees, had rescued the daughter of
their chief from becoming the "bride of
Satan,” had married her and later brought
her to America.
Despite a sentence in the old manu¬
script that warned Hume’s descendants to
flee if they received a message to "come
home,” Alice’s mother refused to admit
any connection between the Yezidee leg¬
end and her daughter’s disappearance.
But that very night Arabella Hume was
found dead, her body hanging by a silken
cord around the throat, in her own bou¬
doir. To all outward appearances it was
suicide, but de Grandin insisted Mrs.
Hume had been murdered, her neck
broken by the roomal or strangling-cord
of the Thugs of India.
Abduction of a baby boy from the Bap¬
tist Orphanage aroused de Grandin to a
fever pitch of excitement and alarm.
M aintained by liberal endowments
and not greatly taxed by superflu¬
ity of inmates, the Baptist Home for Chil¬
dren lay on a pleasant elevation some five
miles out of Harrisonville. Its spacious
grounds, which were equipped with every
possible device for fostering organized
play among its little guests were, as the
newspaper accounts described, surround¬
ed by a brick wall of formidable height
with projecting overhangs flanging T-wise
from the top. Moreover, in an excess of
caution, the builder had studded the
wall’s crest with a fringe of broken bottle-
glass set in cement, and any one endeavor¬
ing to cross the barrier must be prepared
not only with scaling ladders so long as to
be awkward to carry, but with a gangway
or heavy pad to lay across the shark-tooth
points of glass with which the wall was
armored. De Grandin made a rapid re¬
connaissance of the position, twisting
viciously at his mustache meanwhile.
"Ah, helas, the poor one!” he murmured
as his inspection was completed. "Before
I had some hope; now I fear the worst!”
"Eh?” I returned. "What now?”
"Plenty, pardieu—a very damn great
plenty!” he answered bitterly. "Come,
let us interview the concierge. He is our
only hope, I fear.”
I glanced at him in wonder as we
neared the pretty little cottage in which
the gatekeeper maintained his home and
office.
"No, sir,” the man replied to de Gran-
 THE DEVIL S BRIDE
din’s question, "I’m sure no one could
’a’ come through that gate last night.
It’s usually locked for th’ night at ten
o’clock, though I mostly sit up listenin’
to th’ raddio a little later, an’ if anything
real important comes up, I’m on hand to
open th’ gates. Last night there wasn’t a
soul, man or woman, ’ceptin’ th’ grocery
deliveryman, come in here after six
o’clock—very quiet day it was, ’count th’
cold weather, I guess. I wuz up a little
later than usual, too, but tinned in ’bout
’leven o’clock, I should judge. I’d made
th’ rounds o’ th’ grounds with Bruno a
little after seven, an’ believe me, I’m here
to tell you no one could ’a’ been hidin’
anywhere without his knowin’ it. No,
sir!
"Here, Bruno!” he raised his voice and
snapped his fingers authoritatively, and
a ponderous mastiff, seemingly big
enough to drag down an elephant, ambled
in and favored us with a display of awe¬
inspiring teeth as his black lips curled
bade in a snarl.
"Bruno slept right beside my bed, sir.”
the gatekeeper went on, "an’ th’ winder
wuz open; so if any one had so much as
stopped by th’ gate to monkey with it,
he’d ’a’ heard ’em, an’—well, it wouldn’t
’a’ been so good for ’em, I’m tellin’ you.
I recollec’ once when a pettin’ party
parked across th’ road from th’ gate,
Bruno got kind o’ suspicious-like, an’ first
thing any of us knew he’d bolted through
th’ winder an’ made for ’em—like to tore
th’ shirt off th’ feller ’fore I woke up an’
called ’im off.”
De Grandin nodded shortly. "And
may one examine your room for one little
minute, Monsieur?” he asked courteously.
" We shall touch nothing, of course, and
request that you be with us at all times.”
"We-ell—I don’t—oh, all right,” the
watchman responded as the Frenchman’s
hand strayed meaningly toward his wallet.
"Come on.”
375
The small, neat room in which the gate¬
keeper slept had a single wide window
opening obliquely toward the gate and
giving a view both of the portal and a
considerable stretch of road in each direc¬
tion, for the gatehouse was built into, and
formed an integral part of the wall sur¬
rounding the grounds. From window-sill
to earth was a distance of perhaps six feet,
possibly a trifle less.
"And your keys were where, if you
please?” de Grandin asked as he surveyed
the chamber.
"Right on the bureau there, where I
put ’em before I went to bed last night,
an’ they wuz in th’ same place this mom-
in’ when they called me from th’ office,
too. Guess they’d better ’a’ been there,
too. Any one tryin’ to sneak in an’ pinch
’em would ’a’ had old Bruno to deal with,
even if I hadn’t wakened, which I would
of, ’count of I’m such a light sleeper. You
have to be, in a job like this.”
"Perfectly,” the Frenchman nodded
understanding^ as he walked to the win¬
dow, removed the immaculate white-linen
handkerchief from his sleeve and flicked
it lightly across the sill. "Thank you,
Monsieur, we need not trouble you fur¬
ther, I think,” he continued, taking a bill
from his folder and laying it casually on
the bureau before turning to leave the
room.
At the gateway he paused a moment,
examining the lock. It was a heavy snap-
latch of modern workmanship, strong
enough to defy the best efforts of a crew
of journeymen safe-blowers.
"C’est tres simple,” he murmured to
himself as we left the gate and entered
my car. "Behold, Friend Trowbridge.”
Withdrawing the white handkerchief
from his cuff he held it toward me.
Across its virgin surface there lay, where
he had brushed it on the watchman’s
window-sill, a smear of yellow powder.
376 .WEIRD TALES
"Bvlala-gwai," he told me in a weary,
almost toneless voice.
"What, that devil-dust-”
"Precisement, my friend, that devil-
dust. Was it not simple? To his window
they did creep, most doubtlessly on shoes
with rubber soles, which would make no
noise upon the frozen ground. Pouf! the
sleeping-powder is tossed into his room,
and he and his great mastiff are at once
unconscious. They remove-his keys; it is
a so easy task. The gate is unlocked,
opened; then made fast with a retaining
wedge, and the keys replaced upon his
bureau. The little one is stolen, the gate
dosed behind the kidnappers, and the
spring-latch locks itself. When the alarm
is broadcast Monsieur le Concierge can
swear in all good conscience that no one
has gone through die gate and that his
keys are in their proper place. But cer¬
tainly; of course they were. By damn, but
they are clever, those ones!”
"Whom do you mean? Who’d want
to steal a little baby from an orphans’
home?”
"A little unbaptized baby—and a boy,”
he interjected.
"All right, then, a little unbaptized
boy.”
"I would give my tongue to the cat to
answer that,” he told me solemnly.
"That they are the ones who spirited
Mademoiselle Alice away from before our
very eyes we can not doubt. The tech¬
nique of their latest crime has labeled
them; but why they, whose faith is a bas¬
tardized descendant of tire old religion of
Zoroaster—a sort of disreputable twelfth
cousin of the Parsees—should want to do
this—non, it does not match, my friend.
Jules de Grandin is much puzzled.” He
shook his head and pulled so savagely at
his mustache that I feared he would do
himself permanent injury.
'What in heaven’s name-” I be¬
gan. And;
"In heaven’s name, ha! Yes, we shall
have much to do in heaven’s name, my
friend,” he cut in. "For of a certainty
we are alined against a crew who ply their
arts in hell’s name.”
6. The Veiled Lady Again
arrisonville’s newest citizens, gross
weight sixteen pounds, twelve
ounces, delayed their advent past all ex¬
pectations that night, but with their over¬
due arrival came trying complications, and
for close upon three hours two nurses, a
badly worried young house physician and
I fought manfully to bring the mother
and her twins back across death’s door¬
step. It was well past midnight when I
climbed my front steps, dog-tired, with
hands that trembled from exhaustion and
eyes still smarting from the glare of sur¬
gery lamps. “Half a gill of brandy, then
bed—and no morning office hours tomor¬
row,’’ I promised myself as I tiptoed
down the hall.
I poured the spirit out into a graduate
and was in the act of draining it when the
sudden furious clamor of the night bell
arrested my upraised hand. Acquired
instinct will not be denied. Scarcely
aware what I did, I put the brandy down
untasted and stumbled, rather than
walked, to the front door to answer the
alarm.
"Doctor—Doctor, let me in—hide me.
Quick, don’t let them see us talking!” the
fear-sharpened feminine whisper cut
through the darkened vestibule and a
woman’s form lurched drunkenly for¬
ward into my arms. She was breathing
in short, labored gasps, like a hunted
creature.
"Quick—quick”—again that scarcely
audible murmur, more pregnant with ter¬
ror than a scream—“shut the door—lock
it—bolt it—stand back out of the light!
Please!”
I retreated a step or two, my visitor still
 THE DEVIL’S BRIDE
dinging to me like a drowning woman to
her rescuer. As we passed beneath the
ceiling-light I took a hasty glance at her.
I was vaguely conscious of her charm, of
her beauty, of her perfume, so delicate
that it was but the faint, seductive shadow
of a scent. A tightly fitting hat of black
was set on her head, and draped from
this, from eartip to eartip, was stretched
a black-mesh veil, its upper edge just
clearing the tip of her nose but covering
mouth, cheeks and chin, leaving the eyes
and brow uncovered. Through its di¬
aphanous gauze I could see the gleam of
carmined lips and tiny, pearl-like teeth,
seemingly sharp as little sabers as the
small, diildish mouth writhed back from
them in panic terror.
"Why—why”—I stammered—"it’s the
lady we saw when we-”
"Perfectly; it is Mademoiselle I’lncon-
nue, the lady of the veil,” de Grandin
finished as he descended the last three
steps at a run, and, in lavender dressing-
gown and purple kidskin slippers, a violet
muffler draped round his throat, stepped
nimbly forward to assist me with my love¬
ly burden.
"What is it, Mademoiselle?” he asked,
half leading, half carrying her toward the
consulting-room; "have you perhaps come
again to tell us that our search is vain?”
"No, no-o!” the woman moaned, lean¬
ing still more heavily upon us. "Help
me, oh, help me, please! I’m wounded;
they—he—oh, I’ll tell you everything!”
"Excellent!” de Grandin nodded as he
flung back the door and switched on the
electric lights. "First let us see your hurt,
then—mon Dieu, Friend Trowbridge, she
has swooned!”
Even as he spoke the woman buckled
v/eakly at the knees, and like a lovely doll
from which the sawdust has been let,
crumpled forward toward the floor.
I freed one hand from her arm, intent
on helping place her on the table, and
377
stared at it with an exclamation of dismay.
The fingers were dyed to the knuckles
with blood, and on the girl’s dark motor
coat an ugly dull-red stain was sopping-
wet and growing every moment.
"Tres bien, so!” de Grandin murmured,
placing his hands beneath her arms and
heaving her up to the examination table.
"She will be better here, for—Dieu des
chiens, my friend, observe!”
As the heavy outdoor wrap the woman
wore fell open we saw that it, a pair of
modish patent leather pumps, her motor
gloves and veil-draped hat were her sole
wardrobe. From veil-swathed chin to
blue-veined instep she was as nude as on
the day she came into the world.
No wound showed on her ivory shoul¬
ders or creamy breast, but on her chest,
immediately above the gently swelling
breasts, was a medallion-shaped outline or
cicatrix inside which was crudely tattooed
this design:
"Good heavens!” I exclaimed. "What
is it?”
"Precisement, what is it—and what are
these?” the little Frenchman countered,
ripping aside the flimsy veil and exposing
the girl’s pale face. On each cheek, so
deeply sunk into the flesh below the malar
points that they could only be the result of
branding, were two small cruciform
scars, perhaps three-quarters of an inch
in height by half an inch in width, describ¬
ing the device of a passion cross turned
upside-down.
"Why, of all ungodly things--” I
began, and:
"Ha, ungodly do you say, mon vieux?
Par dieu, you call it by its proper name!”
378 WEIRD TALES
said Jules de Gran din. "An insult to le
bon Dieu was intended, for this poor one
wears upon her body-”
“I c-couldn’t stand it!” moaned the
girl upon the table. "Not that — not
that! He looked at me and smiled and
put his baby hand against my cheek! He
was the image of my dear little—no, no,
I tell you! You mustn’t! O-o-oh, no!”
For a moment she sobbed brokenly,
then: "Oh, mea culpa, mea maxima
culpa! Remember not our offenses nor
the offenses of our forefathers—spare us,
good Lord—I will, I tell you! Yes
I’ll go to him and tell, if—Doctor de
Grandin”—her voice sank to a sibilant
whisper and she half rose from the table,
glaring about with glazed, unseeing
eyes—"Doctor de Grandin, watch for
the chalk-signs of the Devil—follow the
pointing tridents; they’ll lead you to the
place when—oh, mea culpa, mea maxima
culpa! Have pity, Jesu!”
"Delirium,” I diagnosed. "Quick, de
Grandin, she’s running a pretty high tem¬
perature. Help me turn her; the wound
seems in her back.”
It was. Puncturing the soft flesh a
little to the left of the right shoulder,
glancing along the scapula, then striking
outward to the shoulder tip was a gunshot
wound, superficial, but undoubtedly pain¬
ful, and productive of extensive hemor¬
rhage.
With probe and cotton and mercuro-
chrome we sterilized the wound, then
made a gauze compress liberally sprinkled
with Senn’s mixture and made it fast with
cross-bandages of adhesive tape. Three-
quarters of a grain of morphine injected
in her arm provided a defense against re¬
curring pain and sank her in a deep and
peaceful sleep.
"I think she’d best be taken to a hos¬
pital,” I told him when our work was
finished. "We’ve given all the first aid
that we can, and she’ll be better tended
there—we’ve no facilities for bed-rest
here, or-”
"Agreed,” he broke in. "To City Hos¬
pital, by all means. They have a prison
ward there.”
"But we can’t put here there,” I ob¬
jected. "She’s guilty of no crime, and
besides, she’s in no condition to go out
alone for several days. She’ll be there
when we want her without the need of
bars to keep her in.”
"Not bars to keep her in,” he told me.
"Bars to keep them out, my friend.”
"Them? Who-”
"The good God knows who, I only
suspect what,” he answered. "Come, let
us take her there without delay.”
“/'■'ian’t be done, son,” Doctor Deri¬
ve ovan told de Grandin when we
arrived at City Hospital with our patient.
"The prison ward’s exclusively reserved
for gents and ladies on special leave from
the hoosegow, or those with some specific
charge pending against ’em. You’d not
care to place a charge against the lady,
would you?”
De Grandin considered him a moment.
"Murder is still a relatively serious of¬
fense, even in America,” he returned
thoughtfully. "Can not she be held as a
material witness?”
"To whose murder?” asked the prac¬
tical Donovan.
"The little Eastman boy’s—he who was
stolen from the Baptist Home last night,”
the Frenchman replied.
"Hold on, feller, be your age,” the
other cautioned. "Who says the little
tad’s been murdered? The police can’t
even find him alive, and till they find his
body there’s no corpus delicti to support a
murder charge.”
Once more the Frenchman gazed som¬
berly at him; then: "Whether you know
it or not, my friend,” he answered seri¬
ously, "that little one is dead. Dead as
 THE DEVIL’S BRIDE
mutton, and he died most unpleasantly—
like the sinless little lamb he was. Yes.”
"Maybe you’ve got some inside dope
on the case?” Donovan suggested hope¬
fully.
"No—only reason and intuition, but
they-”
"They won’t go here,” the other cut in.
"We can’t put this girl in the prison ward
without a warrant of some sort, de Gran-
din; it’s against the rules and as much as
my job’s worth to do it. There might be
all sorts of legal complications; suits for
false imprisonment, and that sort of thing.
But see here, she came fumbling at your
door, mumbling all sorts of nonsense and
clearly out of her head, didn’t she?”
The Frenchman nodded.
"All right, then, we’ll say she was
batty, loony, balmy in the bean, as they
say in classic Siamese. That’ll give us an
excuse for locking her up in H-3, the psy¬
chopathic ward. We’ve got stronger bars
on those windows than we have in the
prison ward. Plenty o’ room there, too;
no one but some souses sleeping off
D. T.’s and the effects of prohibition
whoopee. I’ll move ’em over to make
room for—by the way, what’s your little
playmate’s name, anyhow?”
"We do not know,” returned de Gran-
did. "She is une inconnue."
"Hell, I can’t spell that,” Donovan as¬
sured him. "We’ll have to write her
down unknown. All right?”
"Quite,” the little Frenchman answered
with a smile. "And now you will receive
her?”
"Sure tiling,” the other promised.
"Hey, Jim!” he hailed an orderly loung¬
ing in the corridor, "bring the agony cart.
Got another customer for H-3. She’s un¬
conscious.”
"O. K., Chief,” the man responded,
trundling forward a wheeled stretcher.
379
F rightened, pitiful moans of voyagers
in the borderland of horror sifted
through the latticed doors of the cells fac¬
ing the corridors of H-3 as we followed
the stretcher down the hall. Here a gin-
crazed woman sobbed and screamed in
mortal terror at the phantoms of alcoholic
delirium; there a sodden creature, barely
eighteen, but with the marks of acute
nephritis already on her face, choked and
regurgitated in the throes of deathly nau¬
sea. "Three rousing cheers for the noble
experiment,” Doctor Donovan remarked,
an ugly sneer gathering at the corners of
his mouth. “I wish to God those dam'
prohibitionists had to drink a few swigs
of the kind of poison they’ve flooded the
country with! If I had my way-”
"Jasus!” screamed a blear-eyed Irish¬
woman whose cell we passed. "Lord ha’
mercy on us; ’tis she!” For a moment she
clung to the wicket of her door like a
monkey to the bars of its cage, staring
horror-struck at the still form upon the
stretcher.
"Take it easy, Annie,” Donovan com¬
forted. "She won’t hurt you.”
"Won’t hur-rt me, is it?” the woman
croaked. "Won’t har-rm me, wid th’
Divil’s silf mar-rchin’ down th’ hall be¬
side her! Can’t ye see th’ horns an’ tail
an’ th’ flashin’, fiery eyes of ’im as he walks
beside her, Doctor darlin’? Oh, Lord ha’
mercy; bless an’ save us, Howly Mither!”
She signed herself with the cross and
stared with horror-dazed, affrighted eyes
at the girl on the litter till our pitiful pro¬
cession turned the bend that shut us from
her sight.
7. The Mutter of a Distant Drum
was a windy night of scudding clouds
which had brought a further fall of
snow, and our progress was considerably
impeded as we drove home from the hos¬
pital. I was nearly numb with cold and
on the verge of collapse with fatigue
380 WEIRD TALES
when we finally stabled the car and let
ourselves in at the back door. "Now for
that dose of brandy and bed,” I promised
myself as we crossed the kitchen.
"Yes, by blue,” de Grandin agreed vig¬
orously, "you speak wisdom, my friend.
Me, I shall be greatly pleased to join you
in both.”
By the door of the consulting-room I
halted. "Queer,” I muttered, "I’d have
sworn we turned the lights off when we
left, but-”
"S-s-sh!” De Grandin’s sibilant warn¬
ing cut me short as he edged in front of
me and drew the small but vicious auto¬
matic pistol, which he always carried,
from its holster underneath his left arm-
pit. "Stand back, Friend Trowbridge, for
I, Jules de Grandin, will deal with them!”
He dashed the door wide open with a
single well-directed kick, then dodged
nimbly back, taking shelter behind the
jamb and leveling his pistol menacingly.
"Attention, hands up—I have you cov¬
ered!” he called sharply.
From the examination table, where he
had evidently been asleep, an under-sized
individual bounced rather than rose, land¬
ing cat-like on both feet and glaring fero¬
ciously at the door where de Grandin had
taken cover.
"Assassin!” he shouted, clenching his
fists and advancing half a pace toward
us.
"Morbleu, he has found us!” de Gran¬
din almost shrieked. "It is the apache,
the murderer, the robber of defenseless
little ones and women! Have a care,
monster”—he leaped into the zone of
light shed by the desk lamp and bran¬
dished his pistol—"stand where you are,
if you would go on living your most evil
life!”
Disdainful of the pistol as though it
were a pointed finger the other advanced,
knees bent in an animal crouch, hands
half closed, as though preparing for a
death grip on de Grandin’s throat. A
single pace away he halted and flung wide
his arms. ”Embrasse-moi!” he cried, and
in another moment they were locked to¬
gether in a fond embrace like sweethearts
reunited after parting.
"Oh Georges, ffion Georges, you are
the curing sight for tired eyes; you are
truly heaven-sent!” de Grandin cried
when he had in some measure regained
his breath. "Between the sight of your
so unlovely face and fifty thousand francs
placed in my hand, I should assuredly
have chosen you, mon petit singe!” To
me he added:
"Assuredly you recall Monsieur Renou-
ard, Friend Trowbridge? Georges Jean
Jacques Joseph Marie Renouard, Inspec¬
ted du Service de la Stireti Generate?”
"Of course,” I answered, shaking
hands with the visitor. "Glad to see you
again, Inspector.” The little colonial ad¬
ministrator had been my guest some years
before, and he, de Grandin and I had
shared a number of remarkable adven¬
tures. "We were just about to take a
drink,” I added, and the caller’s bright
eyes lit up with appreciation. "Won’t
you join us?”
"Parbleu," Renouard assured me, "I do
most dearly love your language, Monsieur
Trowbridge, and most of all I love the
words that you just said!”
Our liquor poured, we sat and faced
each other, each waiting for the other to
begin the conversation. At length:
"I called an hour or so ago,” Renouard
commenced, "and was admitted by your
so excellent maid. She said that you were
out, but bade me wait; then off she went
to bed—nor do I think that she did count
the silver first. She knows me. Yes.
Bien odors, I waited, and fell asleep while
doing so.”
I looked at him with interest. Though
shorter by some inches than the average
American, Renouard could not be prop-
 THE DEVIL’S BRIDE
erly called under-sized. Rather, he was a
giant in miniature. His very lack of
height gave the impression of material
equilibrium and tremendous physical
force. Instinctively one felt that the
thews of his arms were massive as those
of a gladiator and that his torso was
sheathed in muscles like that of a profes¬
sional wrestler. A mop of iron-gray hair
was brushed back in an uprearing pompa¬
dour from his wide, low brow, and a
curling white mustache adorned his upper
lip, while from his chin depended a white
beard cut square across the bottom in the
style beloved of your true Frenchman.
But most impressive of all was his cold,
pale face—a face with the pallor of a
statue—from which there burned a pair
of big, deep-set dark eyes beneath circum¬
flexes of intensely black and bushy brows.
"Eh bien, mon Georges,” de Grandin
asked, "what storm wind blows you hith¬
er? You were ever the fisher in troubled
waters.”
Renouard gulped down his brandy,
stroked his mustache and tugged his
beard, then drew forth a Russian leather
case from which he extracted a "Mary¬
land” cigarette. "Women,” he answered
sententiously.' "Women, par bleu! One
sometimes wonders why the good God
made them.” He snapped an English
lighter into flame and with painstaking
precision set his puissant cigarette aglow,
then folded his big white hands demurely
in his lap and glanced inquiringly at us
with his bright dark eyes as though we
held the answer to his riddle.
"Tiens, my friend,” de Grandin
laughed. "Had he not done so it is ex¬
tremely probable that you and I would
not be here indulging in this pleasant
conversation. But be more specific, if
you please. What women bring you
here, and why?”
Renouard expelled a double stream of
acrid smoke from his nostrils, emitting a
381
snort of annoyance at the same time.
"One hardly knows the words to tell it,”
he replied.
"The trouble starts in Egypt. During
the war, and afterward until the end of
martial law in 1923, Egypt, apart from
the Continental system of maisons de tol¬
erance, was outwardly at least as moral as
London. But since the strong clean hand
of Britain has been loosed there has been
a constantly increasing influx of white
slaves to' the country. Today hardly a
ship arrives in Alexandria without its
quota of this human freight. The trade
is old, as old as Nineveh and Tyre, and to
suppress it altogether is a hopeless under¬
taking, but to regulate it, ah, that is some¬
thing different.
"We were not greatly exercised when
the numbers of unfortunate girls going
from Marseilles increased in Egypt, but
when respectable young girls—mats out,
girls of more than mere bourgeois respect¬
ability, even daughters of le beau monde,
were sucked beneath the surface, later to
be boiled up as inmates of those infamous
Blue Houses of the East—then we did
begin to take sharp notice.
"They sent for me. ’Renouard,’ they
said, 'investigate, and tell us what is
which.’
"Tres bon, I did commence. The dos¬
siers of half a dozen girls I took, and
from the ground upward I did build their
cases. Name of a little blue man!” He
leaned forward, speaking in a low, im¬
pressive tone scarce above a whisper:
"There was devilment, literally, I mean,
my friends, in that business. By example:
"Each one of these young girls was of
an independent turn; she reveled in the
new emancipation of her sex. Oh, but
yes! So much she relished this new free¬
dom that the ancient inhibitions were
considered out of date. The good God,
the gentle Christ Child, the Blessed
Mother—ah bah, they were outmoded;
382 WEIRD TALES
she must follow after newer—or older—
gods.
"Eh bien, exceedingly strange gods
they were, too. In Berlin, Paris, London
and New York there is a sect which
preaches for its gospel 'Do What Thou
Wilt; This Shall Be the Whole of the
Law.’ And as the little boy who eats too
many bonbons inevitably achieves a belly¬
ache, so do the followers of this unbridled
license reap destruction ultimately. But
certainly.
"Each one of these young girls I find,
she has enlisted in this strange, new army
of the freed. She has attended meetings
where they made strange prayers to
stranger gods, and—eventually she ends
a cast-off plaything, eaten with drugs and
surfeited with life, in the little, infamous
Blue Houses of the East. Yes.
"I found them all. Some were dying,
some'were better dead, some had still a
little way to tread the dreary path of hell-
in-life, but all—all, my friends—were
marked with this device upon their
breasts. See, I have seen him so often I
can draw him from memory.” Taking a
black-oilcloth bound notebook from his
pocket he tore out a leaf and scribbled
this design upon it:
De Grandin and I stared at each other
in blank amazement as he passed the sheet
to us.
"Good Lord!” I ejaculated. "It’s ex¬
actly like-”
"Precisement; U metne chose—it is the
same that Mademoiselle of the Veil dis¬
played,” de Grandin agreed. With shin¬
ing eyes he turned to face Renouard.
"Proceed, my friend,” he begged. "When
you have done we have a tale to tell.”
"Ah, but I am far from done,” the In¬
spector replied. "Bien non. I did investi¬
gate some more, and I found much. I
discovered, by example, that the society
to which these most unhappy girls be¬
longed was regularly organized, having
grand and subordinate lodges, like Free¬
masons, with a central body in control of
all. Moreover, I did find that at all times
and at all places where this strange sect
met, there was a Russian in command, or
very near the head. Does that mean any¬
thing to you? No?
"Very well, then, consider this: Last
year the Union of the Militant Godless,
financed by the Soviet government, closed
four thousand churches in Russia by direct
action. Furthermore, still well supplied
with funds, they succeeded in doing much
missionary work abroad. They promoted
all sorts of atheistic societies, principally
among young people. In America on the
one hand they gave much help to such
societies as 'The Lost Souls' among col¬
lege students, and on the other they
greatly aided fanatical religious sects
which aim at the abolition of innocent
amusement—in the name of Christ. As¬
sociations for making the Sabbath Day un¬
pleasant by closing of the cinemas, the
shops and all places of recreation, have
received large grants of money from the
known agents of this Godless Union.
Moreover, we know for certain that much
of the legislation fostered by these bodies
has been directly proposed by Russian
agents posing as staunch upholders of
fundamental religion. You see? On the
one side atheism is promoted among the
young, on the other religion’s own min¬
isters are whipped on by flattery or out¬
right bribery to do such things as will
make the churches hateful to all liberal-
minded people. The scheme is beauti¬
fully simple, and it has worked well.
 THE DEVIL S BRIDE
"Again: In England only half a year
ago a clergyman was unfrocked for hav¬
ing baptized a dog, saying he would make
it a good member of the Established
Church. We looked this man’s antece¬
dents up and found that he was friendly
with some Russians who posed as emigres
—refugees from the Bolshevik oppres-
' sion. Now this man, who has no fortune
and no visible means of support, is active
every day in preaching radical atheism,
and in weaning his former parishioners
from their faith. He lives, and lives well.
Who provides for him? one wonders.
"Defections in the clergy of all
churches have been numerous of late, and
in every instance one or mere Russians
are found on friendly terms with the
apostate man of God.
"Non, hear me a little further,” he
went on as de Grandin was about to
speak. "The forces of disorder, and of
downright evil, are dressing their ranks
and massing their shock troops for attack.
Far in the East there is the mutter of a
distant drum, and from the fastnesses of
other lands the war-drum’s beat is an¬
swered. Consider:
"In the Congo there is renewed activ¬
ity by the Leopard Men, those strange
and diabolical societies whose members
disguise themselves as leopards, then seek
and'kill their prey by night. The author¬
ities are taking most repressive measures,
but still the Leopard Societies flourish
more than ever, and the blacks are fast
becoming unruly. There will be diffi¬
culties.
"In Paris, London and Berlin again and
yet again churches are despoiled of sacred
plate and blessed vestments, the host is
stolen from the altar, and every kind of
sacrilege is done. A single instance of
this sort of thing, or even several, might
be coincidence, but when the outrages are
perpetrated systematically, not once, but
scores of times, and always at about the
383
same time, though in widely separated
places, coincidences become statistics.
There can no longer be a doubt; the black
mass is being celebrated regularly in all
the greater cities of the world; yet we do
not ink mere insult to God is all that is
intended. No, there is some central, un¬
derlying motive for this sudden and wide¬
spread revival of satanism. One wonders
what.
"And here another puzzle rises: In
Arabia, north of Irak, in the Kurdish
mountains, is the headquarters of a strange
people called the Yezidees. About them
we know little, save that they have served
the Devil as their god time out of mind.
Had they been strong numerically, they
would have been a problem, for they are
brave and fierce, and much given to kill¬
ing, but they are few in number and their
Moslem neighbors ring them round so
thoroughly that they have been forced
back upon themselves and seldom do they
trouble those who do not trouble them.
But”—he paused impressively—"on
Mount Lalesh, where their great temple
stands, strange things have been brewing
lately. What it is we do not clearly know,
but their members have been gathering
from all parts of the East, from as far as
Mongolia, in some instances, to celebrate
some sort of mystic ceremony. Not only
that, but strangers—Europeans, Africans,
white, black and yellow men, who have
no business being there, have been ob¬
served en route to Kurdistan, like pil¬
grims journeying to Mecca. Less than a
month ago a party of brigands waylaid
some travelers near Aleppo. Our gen¬
darmes rescued them—they were a party
of Americans, and Englishmen, with sev¬
eral Spaniards as well and all were headed
for Kurdistan and Mount Lalesh. Again
one wonders why.
"Our secret agents have been powerless
to penetrate the mystery. We only know
that many Russians have been seen to
384 WEIRD TALES
enter the forbidden city of the Yezidees;
that the Yezidees, who once were poor,
are now supplied with large amounts of
ready cash; and that their bearing toward
their neighbors has suddenly become arro¬
gant
“Wild rumors are circulated; there is
talk of a revival of the cult of the Assas¬
sins, who made life terrible for the Cru¬
saders and the Mussulmans alike. There
are whispers of a prophetess to come from
some strange land, a prophetess who will
raise the standard of the Devil and lead
his followers against the Crescent and the
Cross. Just what it is we do not surely
know, but those of us who know the East
can perceive that it means war. The
signs are unmistakable; revolution is
fomenting. Some sort of unholy jahad
will be declared, but where the blow will
fall, or when, we can not even guess.
India? Indo-China? Arabia? Perhaps in
all at once. Who knows? London is
preparing, so is Paris, and Madrid is
massing troops in Africa—but who can
fight a figure carved in smoke? We must
know at whom to strike before we can
take action, n'est-ce-pas?
"But this much I can surely tell: One
single man, a so-mysterious man whose
face I have not seen, but whose trail is
marked as plainly as a snake’s track in
the dust, is always found at hand where
the strings of these far-separated things
are joined and knotted in a cord. He was
a prime mover in the societies to which
those wretched girls belonged; he was
among those friendly with the unfrocked
English clergyman; he was almost, but
not quite, apprehended in connection with
the rifling of the sanctuary of a church in
Cologne; he has been seen in Kurdistan.
Across France, England, Arabia and
Egypt have I trailed him, always just a
little bit too late. Now he is in America.
Yes, parbleu, he is in this very city!
"C'est tout! I must find him, and find¬
ing him, I must achieve a method to de¬
stroy him, even if I have to stoop to mur¬
der. The snake may wriggle, even
though his head has been decapitated, but
God knows he can no longer bite when it
is done. So do I.”
J ULES DE GRANDIN leaned across the
desk and possessed himself of Ren-
ouard’s cigarette case, extracted from it a
vile-smelling “Maryland” and lit it with
a smile.
“I know the answers to your problems
—or some of them, at least—my friend,”
he asserted. "This very night there came
to us—to this very house—a deserter from
the ranks of the accursed, and though she
raved ia wild delirium, she did let fall
enough to tell us how to find this man you
seek, and when we find him-” The
hard, cold light, which always reminded
me of winter sunshine glinting on a frozen
stream, came into his eyes, and his thin
lips tightened in an ugly line. "When
we have found him,” he continued, "we
shall blow what to do. Name of an um¬
brella, we damn shall!
“The piecemeal information which
you have fits admirably with what we al¬
ready know and better yet with that which
we suspect. Listen to me carefully-”
The sudden jangle of the telephone
broke in.
"Doctor Trowbridge?” called a deep
bass voice as I snatched up the instrument
and growled a gruff “hullo?”
"Yes.”
"Costello—Detective Sergeant Costello
spealdn'. Can you an’ Doctor de Gran-
din be ready in five minutes to go wid
me? I’d not be afther askin’ ye to leave
yer beds so early it it warn’t important,
sor, but-”
“That’s all right, Sergeant, we haven’t
been to bed as yet,” I toid him. "We’re
pretty well done in, but if this is impor¬
tant-
W. T.—6
 THE DEVIL’S BRIDE
"Important, is it? Glory be to God, if
th’ foulest murther that iver disgraced th’
Shtate o’ Jersey ain’t important, then I
can’t think what is. ’Tis out to th’ Con¬
vent o’ th’ Sacred Heart, by Rupleyville,
sor, an’—I’ll take it kindly if ye’ll go
along wid me, sor. Th’ pore ladies out
there’ll be needin’ a docthor’s services.
I’m thinkin’, an’ St. Joseph knows I’m
afther needin’ all th’ expert help that
Doctor de Grandin can give me, too.”
"All right, we’ll be waiting for you,”
I replied as I put the monophone back in
its hooks and turned to notify de Grandin
and Renouard of our engagement.
8. "In Hoc Signo-”
HE querulous crescendo pf a squad
car’s siren sounded outside our door
almost as I finished speaking, and we
trooped down the front steps to join the
big Irish policeman and two other plain¬
clothes officers occupying the tonneau of
the department vehicle. "Sure, Inspector
Renouard,” Costello greeted heartily as he
shook hands, " ’tis glad I am to see ye
this mornin’. There’s nothin’ to do in
this case but wor-rk like th’ devil an’ trust
in God, an’ th’ more o’ us there’s here to
do it, th’ better our chances are. Jump
in, gentlemen.” To the uniformed diauf-
feur he ordered: "Shtep on it, Casey.”
Casey stepped. The powerful Cadillac
leaped forward like a mettlesome horse
beneath the Sailings of a lash, and the
cold, sharp air of early winter morning
was whipped into our faces with breath¬
taking force as we sped along the deserted
road at nearly eighty miles an hour.
"What is it? What has happened?” de
Grandin cupped his hands and shouted as
we roared past the sleeping houses of the
quiet suburb. Costello raised his gloved
hand to his mouth, then shook his head.
No voice was capable of bellowing above
the screeching of the rushing wind.
Almost before we realized it we were
W. T.—7
385
drawn up before the tall graystone walls
of the convent, and Costello was jerking
vigorously at the bell-pull beside the gate.
"From headquarters, Ma’am,” he an¬
nounced tersely, touching his hat as the
portress drew bade the little wicket in the
door and gazed at us inquiringly.
Something more than ordinary silence
seemed to brood above the big, bare build¬
ing as we followed our conductress down
the clean-swept corridor to the public
reception parlor; rather, it seemed to me,
the air was charged with a sort of con¬
centrated, apprehensive emanation of
sheer terror. Once, when professional
obligations required my attendance at an
execution, I had felt some such eery sensa¬
tion of concentrated horror and antitipa-
tion as the other witnesses and I sat mute
within the execution chamber, staring al¬
ternately with fright-filled eyes at the
grim electric chair and the narrow door
through which we knew the condemned
man would soon emerge.
As we reached the reception room and
seated ourselves on the hard, uncomfort¬
able chairs, I suddenly realized the cause
of the curiously anxious feeling which
possessed me. From every quarter of the
building—seemingly from floors and
walls and ceilings—there came the almost
mute but still perceptible soft sibilation
of a whispered chorus. Whisper, whis¬
per, whisper; the faint, half-audible susur¬
ration persisted without halt or break, end¬
less and untiring as the lisping of the
tide upon the sands. It worried me, it
beat upon my ears like water wearing on
a stone; unless it stopped, I told myself, I
would surely shout aloud with all my
might for no other reason than to drown
its everlasting, monotonous reiteration.
The tap of light-soled shoes and the
gentle rustle of a skirt brought relief from
the oppressive monotone, and the Mother
Superior of the nunnery stood before us.
Costello bowed with awkward grace as he
386 WEIRD TALES
stepped forward. De Grandin and Ren-
ouard were frigidly polite in salutation;
for Frenchmen, especially those connected
with official life, have not forgotten the
rift between the orders and the Govern¬
ment of France existing since the disestab¬
lishment of 1903.
"We’re from headquarters, Mother,”
Costello introduced; "we came as quickly
as we could. Where is it—she—the body,
if ye please?”
Mother Mary Margaret regarded him
with eyes which seemed to have wept so
much that not a tear was left, and her
firm lips trembled as she answered: "In
the garden, officer. It’s irregular for men
to enter there, but this is an emergency to
which the rules must yield. The portress
was making her rounds a little before
matins when she heard, somebody moving
in the garden and looked out. No one
was visible, but something looked strange
to her, so she went out to investigate. She
came to me at once, and I called your of¬
fice on the ’phone immediately. Then
we rang the bell and summoned all the
sisters to the chapel. I told them what I
thought they ought to know and then dis¬
missed them. They are in their cells now,
reciting the rosary for the repose of her
soul.”
Costello nodded shortly and turned to
us, his hard-shaven chin set truculently.
"Come on, gentlemen; let’s git goin’,” he
told us. "Will ye lead us to th’ gate?”
he added to the Mother Superior.
The convent gardens stretched across a
plot of level ground for several hundred
feet behind the building. Tall evergreens
were marshaled in twin rows about its
borders, and neatly trimmed privet
hedges marked its graveled paths. At the
far end, by a wall of ivy-covered masonry
some twelve feet high, was placed a Cal¬
vary, a crucifix, nine or ten feet high, set
in a cairn, which overlooked the whole en¬
closure. It was toward this Costello led
us, his blue-black jaw set bellicosely.
De Grandin swore savagely in mingled
French and English as the light, powdery
snow rose above the tops of his patent
leather evening pumps and chilled his
silk-shod feet. Renouard looked round
with quick, appraising glances. I watched
Costello’s face, noting how the savage
scowl deepened as he walked.
I think we recognized it simultaneously.
Renouard gave a short half-scream,
half-groan.
"Sacre nom de sacre nom de sacre
nom!" de Grandin swore
"Jasus!” said Costello.
I felt a sinking in the middle of my
stomach and had to grasp Costello’s arm
to keep from falling with the sudden ver¬
tigo of overpowering nausea.
The lifeless figure on the crucifix was
not a thing of plaster or of painted wood,
it was human—flesh and blood!
Nailed fast with railway spikes through
outstretched hands and slim crossed feet,
she hung upon the cross, her slender,
naked body white as carven ivory. Her
head inclined toward her left shoulder
and her long, black hair hung loosed
across the full white breasts which were
drawn up firmly by the outspread arms.
Upon her head had been rudely thrust an
improvised crown of thorns—a chaplet of
barbed wire cut from some farmer’s fence
—and from the punctures that it made
small streams of coral drops ran down.
Thin trickles of blood oozed from the
tom wounds in her hands and feet, but
these had frozen on the flesh, heightening
the resemblance to a tinted simulacrum.
Her mouth was slightly opened and her
chin hung low upon her breast, and from
the tongue which lay against her lower
lip a single drop of ruby blood, congealed
by cold even as it fell, was pendent like
a ruddy jewel against the flesh.
Upon her chest, above her breasts,
 THE DEVIL’S BRIDE
glowed the tattooed mark which we had
seen when she appealed to us for help a
scant four hours earlier.
Above the lovely, thorn-crowned head
where the replica of Pontius Pilate’s in¬
scription had been set, another legend
was displayed, an insulting, mocking chal¬
lenge from the murderers: "In Hoc Signo
•—in this sign,” and then a grim, derisive
picture of a leering devil’s face:
\N WOC SIGNO
"Ah, la pauvre!” de Grandin mur¬
mured. "Poor Mademoiselle of the Veil,
were not all the bars and bolts of the hos¬
pital enough to keep you from them after
all? I should have stayed with you, then
they would not-” He broke off, star¬
ing meditatively at the figure racked upon
the cross, his little, round blue eyes hard¬
ening as water hardens with a sudden
frost.
Renouard tugged at his square-cut
beard, and tears welled unashamed in his
bright, dark eyes.
Costello looked a moment at the pen¬
dent figure on the crucifix, then, doffing
his hat, fell to his knees, signed himself
reverently and began a hasty, mumbled
prayer for the dying.
De Grandin neither wept nor prayed,
but his little eyes were hard and cold as
eyes of polished agate inlaid in the sock¬
ets of a statue’s face, and round his small
and thin-lipped mouth, beneath the
pointed tips of his trim, waxed mustache,
there gathered such a snarling grin of
murderous hate as I had never seen.
"Hear me, my friends,” he ordered.
"Hear me, you who hang so dead and
lovely on the cross; hear me, ail ye that
dwell in heaven with the blessed saints,”
and in his eyes and on his face was the
387
terrifying look of the born killer; "when
I have found the one who did this thing,
it had been better far for him had he been
stillborn, for I shall surely give him that
which he deserves. Yes, though he take
refuge underneath the very throne of God
Himself. I swear it upon this!” He laid
his hand against the nail-pierced feet of
the dead girl as one who takes a ritual
oath upon a sacred relic.
I T was grisly business getting her from
the cross, but at last the spikes were
drawn and the task completed. While
Costello and Renouard examined every
inch of trodden snow about the violated
Calvary, de Grandin and I bore the body
to the convent mortuary chapel, com¬
posed the stiffened limbs as best we could,
then notified the coroner.
"This must by no means reach the
press, Monsieur," de Grandin told the
coroner when he arrived. "Promise you
will keep it secret, at least until I give the
word.”
"H’m, I can’t do that very well,”
Coroner Martin demurred. "There’s the
inquest, you know; it’s my sworn duty to
hold one.”
"Ah, but yes; but if I tell you that our
chances of capturing the miscreants who
have done this thing depend upon our
secrecy, then you will surely withhold
publicity?” de Grandin persisted. "Can
you not, by example, summon your jury,
show them the body, swear them in, and
then adjourn the public hearing pending
further evidence?”
Mr. Martin lowered his handsome gray
head in silent thought. "You’ll testify
the cause of death was shock and exposure
to the cold?” he asked at length.
"Name of a small asparagus tree, I will
testify to anything!” answered Jules de
Grandin.
"Very well, then. We’ll hush the mat¬
ter up. I won’t call Mother Mary Mar-
 WEIRD TALES
garet at all, and Costello can tell us mere¬
ly that he found her nude in the convent
garden. Just how he found her is a
thing we’ll not investigate too closely.
She disappeared from City Hospital psy¬
chopathic ward—the inference is she wan¬
dered off and died of exposure. It will
be quite feasible to keep the jury from
seeing the wounds in her hands and feet;
I’ll held the official viewing in one of the
reposing-rooms of my funeral home and
have the body covered with a robe from
the neck down. How’s that?”
"Monsieur,” de Grandin drew himself
up stiffly and raised his hand in formal
military salute, "permit me to inform you
that you are a great man!
"Ailons, speed, quickness, hurry, we
must go!” he ordered when the pitiful
body had been taken away and Costello
and Renouard returned from their inspec¬
tion of the garden.
"Where are we rushin’ to now, sor?”
the big detective asked.
"To City Hospital, pardieu! I would
know exactly how it comes that one whose
custody was given to that institution last
night should thus be taken from her bed
beneath their very noses and murderously
done to death In this so foul manner.”
“ ay, de Grandin, was that gal you and
*3 Trowbridge brought here last night
any kin to the late Harry Houdini?”
Doctor Donovan greeted as we entered his
office at City Hospital.
De Grandin favored him with a long,
hard stare. "What is it that you ask?” he
demanded.
"Was she a professional disappearing
artist, or something of the kind? We saw
her locked up so tight that five men and
ten little boys couldn’t have got her out,
but she’s gone, skipped, flown the coop;
and not a soul saw her when she blew,
either.”
"Perfectly, we are well aware she is no
longer with you,” de Grandin answered.
"The question is how comes it that you,
who were especially warned to watch her
carefully, permitted her to go.”
"Humph, I wish I knew the answer to
that one myself,” Donovan returned. "I
turned in a few minutes after you and
Trowbridge went, and didn’t hear any¬
thing further till an hour or so ago when
Dawkins, the night orderly in H-3, came
pounding on my door with some wild
story of her being gone. I threw a shoe
at him and told him to get the devil away
and let me sleep, but he kept after me
till I finally got up in self-defense.
"Darned if he wasn’t right, too. Her
room was empty as a bass drum, and she
was nowhere to be found, though we
searched the ward with a fine-tooth comb.
No one had seen her go—at least, no one
will admit it, though I think some one’s
doing a piece of monumental lying.”
"U’m?” de Grandin murmured non¬
committally. "Suppose we go and see.”
The orderly, Dawkins, and Miss Hoss-
kins, the night supervisor of the ward,
met us as we passed the barred door. "No,
sir,” the man replied to de Grandin’s
quick questions, "I didn’t see or hear—
gee whiz! I wonder if that could ’a’ had
anything to do with it—no, o’ course it
couldn’t!”
"Eh?” de Grandin returned sharply.
"Tell us the facts, Monsieur. We shall
draw our own conclusions, if you please."
"Well, sir,” the man grinned sheep¬
ishly, "it was somewhere about five
o’clock, possibly a bit later, an’ I was sort
o’ noddin’ in my chair down by th’ lower
end o’ th’ corridor when all of a sudden I
heard a funny-soundin’ kind o’ noise—
sort o’ like a high wind blowin’, or—let’s
see—well, you might compare it to the
hum of a monster bee, only it was more
of a whistle than a buzz, though there was
a sort o’ buzzin’ sound to it, too.
"Well, as I was sayin’, I’d been nod-
 THE DEVIL S BRIDE
din’, an’ this sudden queer noise woke me
up. I started to get up an’ see what it
was all about, but it didn’t come again, so
I just sat back an-”
"And went to sleep, eh?” Donovan cut
in. "I thought you’d been lying, you
swine. Fine chance we have of keeping
these nuts in with you orderlies snoring
all over the place!”
"Monsieur Donovan, if you please!”
Renouard broke in with lifted hand. To
Dawkins:
"You say this was a high, shrill sound,
mon vieux; very high and very shrill?”
"Yes, sir, it was. Not real loud, sir,
but so awful shrill it hurt my ears to lis¬
ten to it It seemed almost as though it
made me sort o’ unconscious, though I
don’t suppose-”
"Tiens, but I do,” Renouard broke in.
"I think I understand.”
Turning to us he added seriously: "I
have heard of him. Our agents in Kur¬
distan described him. It is a sound—a
very high, shrill sound—produced by
blowing on some sort of reed by those fol¬
lowers of Satan from Mount Lalesh. He
who hears it becomes first deafened, then
temporarily paralyzed. According to our
agents’ testimony, it is a refinement of the
wailing of the Chinese screaming boys;
that high, thin, piercing wail which so
disorganizes the hearers’ nervous system
that his marksmanship is impaired, and
often he is rendered all but helpless in a
fight.”
De Grandin nodded. "We know, my
friend,” he agreed. "The night Made¬
moiselle Alice disappeared we heard him
—Friend Trowbridge and I—but that
time they used their devil-dust as well, to
make assurance doubly sure. It is pos¬
sible that their'store of bulala-gwai is low,
or entirely exhausted, and so they now
rely upon the stupefying sound to help
them at their work.
"Mademoisellehe bowed to Miss
389
Hosskins, "did you, too, by any chance,
hear this strange sound?”
"I—I can’t say I did,” the nurse an¬
swered with embarrassment. "The fact
is, sir, I was very tired, too, and was
rather relying on Dawkins being awake
to call me if anything were needed,
so-” she paused, a flush suffusing her
face.
"Quite so,” de Grandin nodded.
"But-”
"But I did wake up with a dreadful
headache—almost as though something
sharp had been thrust in my ears—just
before Dawkins reported that the patient
in 47 was missing,” she added.
Again de Grandin nodded. "I fear
there is nothing more to learn,” he re¬
turned wearily. "Comes let us go.”
"Doctor, Doctor darlin’, they wuz here
last night, like I told ye they’d be!” the
drunken Irishwoman called to Donovan
as we went past her door.
"Now, Annie,” Donovan advised, "you
just lie back and take it easy, and we’ll
have you in shape to go out and get soused
again in a couple o’ days.”
"Annie th’ divil, me name’s Bridget
O’Shay, an’ well ye know it, bad cess to
ye!” the woman stormed. "An’ as fer
shlapin’ in this place again, I’d sooner
shlape in hell, for ’tis haunted be divils
th’ house is!
"Last night. Doctor, I heard th’ ban¬
shee keenin’ outside me windy, an’ 'Brid¬
get O’Shay,’ says I to mesilf, ’th’ fairy-
wife’s come for ye!’ an’ I lays down on
th’ floor wid both fingers in me ears to
shtop th’ sound o’ her callin’.
"But prisently there comes a throop o’
divils mar-rchin’ up th’ corridor, th’ one
in front a-playin’ on some sort o’ divil’s
pipes which I couldn’t hear a-tall, a-tall,
fer havin’ me fingers shtuck in me ears;
an’ walkin’ dost behint him there wuz
two other wans, an’ they all wuz walkin’
like they knew where they wuz goin’.
390 WEIRD TALES
"I watched ’em till they tur-rned th’
bend, an’ then I took me linger from wan
ear, but quick enough I shtuffed it back,
fer there wuz th’ horriblest screamin’
noise in all th’ place as would ’a’ deaf¬
ened me entirely if I hadn’t shtopped me
ears agin.
"Prisently they come again, th’ fore¬
most wan still playin’ on ’is pipes o’ hell,
an’ wan o’ em carryin’ sumpin acrost ’is
shoulders all wrapped up in a blanket,
whilst th’ other wuz a-lookin’ round from
right to left, an’ ’is eyes wuz like peat-
fires bur-min’ in a cave, sor, so they wuz.
I ducked me head as he wint past, for well
I knowed they’d murder me if I wuz seen,
and I know what it wuz, too. ’Twas
Satan on earth come fer that woman ye
brung in here last night, an’ well I know
she’ll not be seen agin!”
"Gosh, that was some case of jimjams
you had last night!” Donovan laughed.
"Better see Father O’Connell and take the
pledge again, Annie, or they’ll be putting
you in the bughouse for keeps some of
these days. It’s true the girl’s wandered
off, but we don’t think anything has hap¬
pened to her. We don’t know where she
is, even.”
"Eh bien, my friend,” de Grandin con¬
tradicted as we left the psychopathic ward,
"you are most badly mistaken. We know
quite definitely where the poor one is.”
"Eh? The devil!” Donovan returned.
"Where is she?”
"Upon a slab in Coroner Martin’s
morgue.”
"For Pete’s sake! Tell me about it;
how’d it happen; I’m interested-”
"The papers will contain a story of her
death,” de Grandin answered as he sup¬
pressed a yawn. "I, too, am interested
greatly—in five eggs with ham to match,
ten cups of coffee and twelve hours’
sleep. Adieu, Monsieur.”
8. Thoughts in the Dark
was too near the boundary line of ex¬
haustion to do more than dally with
the excellent breakfast which Nora Mc¬
Ginnis, my super-efficient household fac¬
totum, set before us, but Renouard, with
the hardihood of an old campaigner,
wolfed huge portions of cereal, fried
sausages and eggs and hot buttered toast,
washing them down with innumerable
cups of well-creamed coffee, while de
Grandin, ever ready to eat, drink or seek
adventure, stowed away an amazing cargo
of food.
"Tres bon, now let us sleep,” he sug¬
gested when the last evidence of food had
vanished from the table. "Parbleu, me,
I could sle.ep for thirty days unceasingly,
and as for food, the thought of it disgusts
me!
"Madame Nora,” he raised his voice
and turned toward the kitchen, "would it
be too much to ask that you have roast
duckling'and apple tart for dinner, and
that you serve it not later than five this
evening? We have much to do, and we
should prefer not to do it on an empty
stomach.”
"No office hours today, Nora,” I ad¬
vised as I rose, swaying with sleepiness,
"and no telephone calls for any of us,
either, please. Tell any one who can not
wait to get in touch with Doctor Phillips.”
How long I slept I do not know, but
the early dark of midwinter evening had
fallen when I sat suddenly bolt-upright
in my bed, my nerves still vibrating like
telephone wires in a heavy wind. Grad¬
ually, insistently, insidiously, a voice had
seemed commanding me to rise, don my
clothes and leave the house. Where I
should go was not explained, but that I
go at once was so insistently commanded
that I half rose from the bed, reluctance,
fear and something close akin to horror
dragging me back, but that not-to-be-ig-
 THE DEVIL’S BRIDE
nored command impelling my obedi¬
ence. Then, while I wrestled with the
power which seemed dominating me, a
sudden memory broke into my dream, a
memory of ether dreams of long ago,
when I woke trembling in the darkened
nursery, crying out in fright, then the stal¬
wart bulk of a big body bending over me,
hands firm yet tender patting my cheek
reassuringly, and the mingled comforting
smell of starched linen, Russia leather
and good tobacco coming through the
darkness while my father’s soothing voice
bade me not to be afraid, for he was with
me.
The second dream dispelled the first,
but I was still a-tremble with the tension
of the summons to arise when I struggled
back to consciousness and looked about
the room.
Half an hour later, bathed, shaved and
much refreshed, I faced de Grandin and
Renouard across the dinner table.
"Par l’amour d’un bouc, my friends,”
de Grandin told us, "this afternoon has
been most trying. Me, I have dreamed
most unpleasant dreams—dreams which I
do not like at all—and which I hope will
not soon be repeated.”
"Comment cela?” Renouard inquired.
"By blue, I dreamed that I received di¬
rect command to rise and dress and leave
this house—and what is more, I should
have done so, had I not awakened!”
"Great Scott,” I interjected, "so did I!”
"Eh, is it so?”
Renouard regarded each of us in turn
with bright, dark eyes, shrewd and know¬
ing as a monkey’s. "This is of interest,”
he declared, tugging at his square-cut
beard. "From what we know, it would
seem that the societies to which the unfor¬
tunate young ladies who first did bring me
in this case are mixed in some mysterious
manner with the Yezidees of Kurdistan,
n’est-ce-pas?”
391
De Grandin nodded, watching him at¬
tentively.
"Very well, then. As I told you here¬
tofore, I do not know those Yezidees in¬
timately. My information concerning
them is hearsay, but it comes from sources
of the greatest accuracy. Yes. Now, I
am told, stretching over Asia, beginning
in Manchuria and leading thence across
Tibet, westward into Persia, and finally
clear to Kurdistan, there is a chain of
seven towered temples of the Yezidees,
erected to the glorifying of the Devil.
The chiefest of these shrines stands upon
Mount Lalesh, but the others are, as
the electricians say, 'hooked up in ser¬
ies.’ Now, underneath the dome of
each one of these temples there sits at
all times a priest of Satan, perpetually
sending off his thought-rays—his men¬
tal emanations. Oh, do not laugh, my
friends, I beg, for it is so! As priests
or nuns professed to the service of
God offer up perpetual adoration and
prayers of intercession, so do these serv¬
ants of the archfiend continually give
forth the praise and prayer of evil. Un¬
ceasingly they broadcast wicked influ¬
ences, and while I would not go so far as
to assert that they can sway humanity to
sin, some things I know.
"I said I did not know the Yezidees,
but that is only partly so. Of them I have
heard much, and some things connected
with them I have seen. For instance:
When I was in Damascus, seeking out
some answer to the riddle of the six young
women, I met a certain Moslem who had
gone to Kurdistan and while there in¬
curred the enmity of the Yezidee priests.
What he had done was not entirely dear,
although I think that he had in some way
profaned their idols. However that may
be, Damascus is a long and tiresome jour¬
ney from the confines of Lalesh, where
Satan’s followers hold their sway, but-
"Attend me”—he leaned forward till
392 WEIRD TALES
the candle-light struck odd reflections
from his deep-set eyes—"this man came
to me one day and said he had received
command to go out into the desert.
Whence the command came he did not
know, but in the night he dreamed, and
every night thereafter he had dreamed,
always the same thing, that he arise and
go into the desert. 'Was it a voice com¬
manding?’ I did ask, and ‘No,’ he said,
'it was rather like a sound unheard but
felt—like that strange ringing in the ears
we sometimes have when we have taken
too much quinine for the fever.’
"I sent him to a doctor, and the learned
medical fool gave him some pills and told
him to forget it. Ha, forget that never-
ending order to arise and leave, which
ate into his brain as a maggot eats in
cheese? As well he might have told one
burning in the fire to dismiss all thought
of torment from his mind!
“There finally came a time when the
poor fellow could no longer battle with
the psychic promptings of the priests of
Satan. One night he left his house and
wandered off. Some few days later the
desert patrol found his burnoose and
boots, or what was left of them. The
jackals, perhaps with the aid of desert
bandits, had disposed of all the rest.
"Now we tread close upon these evil¬
doers’ heels. I have followed them across
the ocean. You, my Jules, and you, Mon¬
sieur Trowbridge, have stumbled on their
path, and all of us would bring them to
account for their misdoings. What then?
"What, indeed, but that one of them,
who is an adept at the black magic of their
craft, has thrown himself into a state of
concentration, and sent forth dire com¬
mands to us—such subtle, silent orders
as the serpent gives the fascinated bird?
You, my Jules, have it. So have you.
Monsieur Trowbridge, for both of you
are somewhat psychic. Me, I am the hard,
tough-headed old policeman, practical,
seeing little farther than my nose, and
then seeing only what I do behold, no
more. Their thought-commands, which
are a species of hypnotism, will probably
not reach me, or, if they do, will not af¬
fect my conduct.
"Your greatest danger is while you
sleep, for then it is the sentry of your con¬
scious mind will cease to go his guardian
rounds, and the gateway to your inner
consciousness will be wide open. I there¬
fore think it wise that we shall share one
room hereafter. Renouard is watchful;
long years of practising to sleep with one
hand on his weapon and one eye open for
attack have schooled him for such work.
You can not move without my knowing,
and when I hear you move I wake you.
And when I wake you their chain is bro¬
ken. Do you agree?”
The thought occurred to Jules de Gran-
din and me at once.
"Alice-” I began, and:
"Yes, parbleu, Mademoiselle Alice!”
cried de Grandin. "That message which
she had, that constant but not understood
command: 'Alice, come home!’ It was
undoubtlessly so given her. Remember,
a day or so before she first received it a
spy of theirs, pretending to be seeking
curios for some collector, came to the
house, and saw the marriage girdle of the
Yezidees. That was what he wanted, to
assure himself that the Alice Hume their
spies had run to earth was indeed the one
they sought, the descendant of that high
priest’s daughter of the ancient days, she
who had run off with the Christian Eng¬
lishman. Yes, par la barbe d’un chat, no
wonder that she could write nothing else
upon her ouija board that day; no wonder
she puzzled why she had that thought-
impression of command to go. Already
they had planted in her mind the order to
abandon home and love and God and to
join herself to their unholy ranks!
"By blue, my Georges, you have solved
 THE DEVIL S BRIDE
two problems for us. It was you who told
us of the meaning of that shrilling cry
which Friend Trowbridge and I did hear
the night on which she disappeared and
which made the hospital attaches unable
to repel invasion of their ward; now you
have thrown more light upon the subject,
and we know it was that Mademoiselle
Alice had that thought-command to leave
before she could suspect that such things
were.
"I think it would be wise if we con¬
sulted-”
"Detective Sergeant Costello,” Nora
McGinnis announced from the dining¬
room door.
"Ah, my friend, come in,” de Grandin
cried. "You are in time to share a new
discovery we have made.”
Costello had no answering smile for
the little Frenchman’s greeting. His eyes
were set in something like a stare of hor¬
ror, and his big, hard-shaven chin trem¬
bled slightly as he answered:
"An’ ye’re in time to share a discovery
wid me, sor, if ye’ll be good enough to
shtep into th’ surgery a moment.”
Agog with interest we followed him
into the surgery, watched him extract a
paper parcel from his overcoat pocket and
tear off the outer wrappings, disclosing
a packet of oiled silk beneath.
"What is it? What have you found?”
de Grandin questioned eagerly.
"This,” the Irishman returned. "Look
here!” He tore the silken folds apart and
dumped their contents on the instrument
table.
A pair of little hands, crudely severed
at the wrists, lay on the table’s porcelain
top.
10. Wordless Answers
D e grandin was the first to recover
from the shock. The double back¬
ground of long practise as a surgeon and
years of service with the secret police had
393
inured him to such sights as would
break the nerve of one merely a doctor or
policeman. Added to this was an insati¬
able curiosity which drove him to exam¬
ine everything he saw, be it beautiful or
hideous. With a touch as delicate as
though he had been handling some frail
work of woven glass he took one of
the little hands between his thumb
and forefinger, held it up to the surgery
light and gazed at it with narrowed eyes
and faintly pursed lips. Looking at him,
one would have said he was about to
whistle.
"A child’s?” I asked, shrinking from
too close examination of the ghastly relic.
"A girl’s,” he answered thoughtfully.
"Young, scarcely more than adolescent, I
should say, and probably not well to do,
though having inclination toward the
niceties of life. Observe the nails.”
He turned the small hand over, and
presented it palm-downward for my
scrutiny. "You will observe,” he added,
"that they are nicely varnished and cut
and filed to a point, though the shaping
is not uniform, which tells us that the
treatment was self-done, and not the work
of a professional manicurist. Again, they
are most scrupulously clean, which is an
indication of the owner’s character, but
the cuticle is inexpertly trimmed; another
proof of self-attention. Finally”—he
turned the hand palm-up and tapped the
balls of the fingers lightly—"though the
digits are white and clean they are slight¬
ly calloused at the sides and the finger
tips and thenal region are inlaid with the
faintest lines of ineradicable soil—occu¬
pational discoloration which no amount
of soap and scrubbing-brush will quite re¬
move. Only acid bleacher or pumice
stone would erase them, and these she
either did not know of, or realized that
their continued use would irritate the fric¬
tion-skin. Enfm, we have here the very
pretty hands of a young working girl pos-
394 WEIRD TALES
sessing wholesome self-respect, but
forced to earn her daily bread by daily
toil. A factory operative, possibly, surely
not a laundress or charwoman. There is
too much work-soil for the first, too little
for the second.”
Again he held the hand up to the
light. "I am convinced that this was sev¬
ered while she was alive," he declared.
"See, it is practically free of blood; had
death occurred some time before the sev¬
erance, the blood would not have been
sufficiently liquid to drain off—though
the operation might have been made a
short time after death,” he added thought¬
fully.
"Have you anything to add, my
friend?” he asked Costello.
"No, sor. All we know is we found
th’ hands,” the Irishman replied. "They
wuz found layin’ side be side, wid th’ fin¬
gers touchin’, like they might ’a’ been
clasped in prayer, but had fallen apart
like, just outside th’ wall o’ th’ convent
garden, sor.’’
"Nom d’un miracle du bon Dieul” ex¬
claimed de Grandin, with that near-blas¬
phemous intimacy he affected for the
Deity. "I had some other things in mind
tonight but this must take precedence.
Come, let us go, rush, hasten, fly to where
you found them, then lay our course from
there until she shall be found!”
T he Convent of the Sacred Heart
stood on an elevation from which it
overlooked surrounding territory, and in
the hollow to the east lay the little settle¬
ment of Rupleyville, a neat but unpreten¬
tious place comprised for the most part
of homes of thrifty Italians who had been
graduated from section gangs upon the
Lackawanna’s right of way to small truck¬
farming, huckstering or fruit-stand keep¬
ing. A general store, a bakery, a little
church erected to Saint Rocco, and a shop
in which two glass globes filled with
colored water and the sign Farmacia Ual-
iana proclaimed its owner’s calling were
the principal edifices of the place.
To the latter de Grandin led us, and
introduced himself in a flood of voluble
Italian. The little, wrinkled pharmacist
regarded him attentively, then replied tor-
rentially, waving his hands and elevating
shoulders and eyebrows tiil I made sure
both would be separated from their re¬
spective sub-structures. At length:
"Perfetto; eccellente!” de Grandin
cried, raising his hat ceremoniously.
"Many thanks, Signor. We go at once.”
To us:
"Come, my friends; I think that we are
on the trail at last.”
"What did you find out, sor?” Costello
asked as the little Frenchman led us hur¬
riedly down the single street the hamlet
boasted.
"Ah, but of course, I did forget you do
not speak Italian,” de Grandin answered
contritely. "When we had looked upon
the spot where you did find the little
hands, I told me, 'It are useless to stand
here staring at the earth. Either the poor
one from whom those hands were cut are
living or dead. In any event, she are not
here. If she are alive, she might have
wandered off, though not far, for the
bleeding from her severed wrists would
be too extensive. If she are dead, she
could not have moved herself, yet, since
she are not here, some one must have
moved her. Jules de Grandin, let us in¬
quire.’
"And so I led the way to this small vil¬
lage, and first of all I see the pharma¬
cist’s shop. ’Very good,’ I tell me, ’the
druggist are somewhat of a doctor; in¬
jured persons frequently appeal to him for
help. Perhaps he will know something.’
And so I interrogate him.
"He knew nothing of a person suffer¬
ing grievous hurt, but he informed me
that a most respectable old woman living
 THE DEVIL’S BRIDE
near had come to him some time ago in
greatest haste and implored that he would
sell her opium, as well as something
which would staunch the flow of blood.
The woman was not suffering an injury.
The inference is then that she sought the
remedies for some one else. N’est-ce-pas?
Of course. Very well, it is to her house
that we go all quickly.”
We halted at the small gate of a cot¬
tage garden. The paling fence was inno¬
cent of paint, but neatly whitewashed, as
were the rough plank sidewalls of the
house. An oil-lamp burned dimly in the
single room the cottage boasted, and by
its feeble light we saw an old woman,
very wrinkled, but very clean, bending
over a low bed which lay in shadow.
De Grandin knocked imperatively on
the whitewashed door, then, as no answer
was forthcoming, pushed back the panels
and stepped across the threshold.
The room was nearly bare of furniture,
the bed, a small table and two rough, un¬
painted chairs completing its equipment.
The little kerosene lamp, a cheap alarm
clock and two gayly colored pictures of
religious scenes were the sole attempts at
ornament. The aged woman, scrupu¬
lously neat in smooth black gown and
cheap jet brooch, straightened on her
knees beside the bed as we came in and
raised a finger to her wrinkled lips.
"Qui-et pleez,” she murmured. "She iss
a-sleepa. I have give”—she sought the
English word, then raised her shoulders in
a shrug of impotence and finished in
Italian—"I give oppio.”
De Grandin doffed his hat and bowed
politely, then whispered quickly in Ital¬
ian. The woman listened, nodded once
or twice, then rose slowly and beckoned
us to follow her across the room. "Si¬
gnori,” she informed us in a whisper, "I
am a poor woman, me; but I have the
means to live a little. At night—what
you call him? si, scrub—I scrub floors in
395
the bank at the city. Sometimes I come
home by the bus at morning, sometimes I
walk for save the money. Last night—
this morning—I walk.
"I pass the convento just when the dark
is turning into light today, and as I go for
walk downhill to here I hear somebody
groan—o-oh, a-ah! like that. I go for
see who are in trouble, and find this
povera lying in the snow.
"Santo Dio, what you think? Some
devil he have cut her arms off close by the
hand! She is bleeding fast.
"I call to her, she try for answer, but
no can. What you think some more?
That devil have cut out her tongue and
blood run out her mouth when she try
speak!
"I go for look some more. Santissima
Madonna, her eyes have been put out!
Oh, I tell you, Signori, it is the sight of
sadness that I see!
"I think at first I run for help; then I
think, 'No, while I am gone she may die
from bleeding. I take her with me.’ So
I do.
"I am very strong, me. All my life, in
old country, in new country, I worka ver-
ree hard. Yes, sure. So I put her on my
back—so!—and make the run—not walk,
run—all way downhill to my house here.
Then I put cloths upon her where her
hands should be and put her in my bed;
then I run all way by the farmaria for
medicine. The drug man not like for sell
me oppio, but I beg him on my knee and
tell him it is for save a life. Then he give
it to me. I come back with a run and
make soup of it and from it feed her with
a spoon. At first she spit it out again, but
after time she swallow it, and now she
not feel no more pain. She is asleep, and
when she wake I give her more until her
hurt all better. I not know who she is,
Signori, but I not like for see her suffer.
She iss so young, so pretty, so—what you
say?—niza? Yes. Sure.”
396 WEIRD TALES
De Grandin twisted his mustache and
looked at her appreciatively. At length:
"Madame, you are truly one of God’s
good noblewomen,” he declared, and
raised her gnarled and work-worn fingers
to his lips as though they had been the
white, jeweled fingers of a countess.
"Now, quick, my friends,” he called to
us. "She must have careful nursing and
a bed and rest and the best medical at¬
tendance. Call for an ambulance from
the pharmacy, my sergeant. We shall await
you here.”
Swiftly, speaking softly in Italian, he
explained the need of expert nursing to
the woman, adding that only in a hospital
could we hope to revive the patient suf¬
ficiently to enable her to tell us something
of her assailants.
"But no!” the woman told him. "That
can not be, Signor. They have cut off her
hands, they have cut out her tongue, they
have put out her eyes. She can not speak
or write or recognize the ones who did it,
even though you made them arrest and
brought them to her. Me, I think maybe
it was the Mafia did this, though they not
do like this before. They kill, yes; but
cut a woman up like this, no. Sicilians
verree bad men, but not bad like that, I
think.”
"Ma mere,” de Grandin answered,
"though all you say is true, nevertheless
I shall find a way for her to talk and tell
us who has done this thing, and how we
best may find him. How I shall do it I
can not tell, but that I shall succeed I am
assured. I am Jules de Grandin, and I
do not fail. Most of my life has been
devoted to the healing of the sick and
Next month’s thrilling installment of this story will bring de Grandin and his
friends into the heart of the Devil-Wor shipper s’ temple during the
celebration of the blasphemous Black Mass.
appear on the magazine stands March 1st.
tracking down the wicked. I may not
heal her hurts, for only God’s good self
can grow new hands and replace her
ruined eyes and tongue, but vengeance I
can take on those who outraged her and
all humanity when they did this shame¬
ful thing, and may Satan roast me on a
spit and serve me hot in my own gravy
with damned, detestable turnips as a gar¬
nish if I do not so. I swear it. She shall
talk to me in hell’s despite.
"Mats oui, you must accept it,” he in¬
sisted as he tendered her a bill and the
woman made a gesture of refusal.
"Think of your ruined gown, your soiled
bed-clothing, and the trouble you have
been to. It is your due, not a reward, my
old one.”
She took the money reluctantly, but
thankfully, and he turned impatiently to
me. "Stand by, my friend,” he ordered;
"we must go with her when they have
come, for every moment is of precious¬
ness. Me, I do not greatly like the looks
of things; the brutal way in which her
hands were amputated, die exposure to
the cold, the well-meaning but unhygienic
measures of assistance which the kindly
one has taken. Infection may set in, and
we must make her talk before it is too
late.”
"Make her talk?” I echoed in amaze¬
ment. "You’re raving, man! How can
she talk without a tongue, or-”
"Ah bah!” he interrupted. "Keep the
eyes on Jules de Grandin, good Friend
Trowbridge. The Devil and his servants
may be clever, but he is cleverer. Yes, by
damn, much more so!”
This will
 By JAMES W. BENNETT and SOONG KWEN-LING
A brief Chinese story which summarizes the Taoist conception
of life after death
T HE whale-oil lamp in my chamber
grew dim. I dropped the tele¬
gram, which I could not bear to
read a second time. I gave ample allow¬
ance to the justice of death in calling
away the very young or the very aged.
The children were saved the knowledge
of the suffering and misery of life, the
ancient ones from bearing their ills too
long. But to call away those in the
prime, those who have helpless coteries of
dependents looking to them—it was un¬
fair!
Suddenly the flame of my lamp grew
more dim. It brightened, then dimmed
again, as if two shadows had crossed be¬
fore it. After that it drooped to a tiny
pin-point of light, and the room appeared
full of moving shapes.
This sense of motion was followed by
sound. I heard soft, sibilant whisperings.
Eagerly I strained my ears. After a mo¬
ment I recognized words—or thought I
did—for the tones were so soft that I had
continuously to piece them together.
"Aren’t you glad of this emancipa¬
tion?” came the question. The muffled
voice was queerly familiar. Could it be
my younger brother?
"Glad? Of course!” came a reply from
across the room.
My heart was pounding. This second
voice was that of my elder brother, a whis¬
pering echo of his voice. It went on:
"Let us think no more of life. We
could not go back to it if we would.”
There was an interval of silence; then
my younger brother spoke regretfully,
wistfully, "Yet, even at this moment our
children are weeping and urging us to
stay.”
The shadow, whence had come the
voice of my elder brother, stirred. "True!
And because of that, we must take our last
look at him who stays. Perhaps we can
make him feel that we are here and are
saying farewell-”
"It is too late!” interrupted my young¬
er brother. "The Messenger is here-”
"Yes, it is too late!” broke in a boom¬
ing voice.
The lamp flickered and then, to my
poignant regret, it went out. I was in
darkness of such an intensity that I
gasped. It was like a sable cloak.
Through its folds drifted the voice that
had last spoken, its resonance diminish¬
ing:
"Too late! Hurry! Your sedan chairs
are waiting for you! Hurry!”
I do not know why the mad urge to fol¬
low them struck me, yet it was com¬
pelling. In the thick blackness I groped
for the door. I discovered that the door
was gone, that the side walls of the room
were gone. Yet this did not strike me
as being odd. I accepted it. The air, I
noted, had grown cool and fresh.
As I groped along, I suddenly found
myself confronted by a wall—a wall of
cold, smooth stone. To my left, as I
threw out my hand, was a second wall.
Behind me, grotesquely enough, a third
wall had sprung up. I asked myself
calmly: was I to be walled up? To die?
But I felt no fear. Then, to my right,
my hand found no staying surface of
398 WEIRD TALES
stone. As I began to move slowly in this
direction, the wall behind me moved
with me, blocking a backward step.
The path was oppressively long, but at
last I succeeded in reaching its termina¬
tion. There I was caught by a current of
air drawing me into a twilight region.
The illumination was faint, like the gray
light which presages the sunrise.
A broad thoroughfare ran straight be¬
fore me, seemingly to infinity. A throng
of persons, reaching as far as my eye could
distinguish, were moving in the roadway,
taking the direction of that great propul¬
sion of air. I was soon swept in among
them, although none paid the slightest
heed to me. I saw women of all ages
moving at the right side of the road; the
men took their way at die left. No one
spoke, even the shuffle of their feet made
no sound. All journeyed in a vast preoc¬
cupation and bemusement.
While traveling with this silent throng,
I saw an old man approaching, the only
traveler who pursued the opposite direc¬
tion. Yet the crowd paid no more heed
to him than they did to one another—or
to me. He spread out his arms, barring
my way, and said in a resonant voice:
"You do not belong here. Come back
with me.”
I recognized his voice. It was that of
the shadow which had taken away my
brothers, the entity called by them the
Messenger.
"But I can not go back,” I answered
him. "The wall closed behind me.”
"Then it is the will of the Gods that
you go on.”
"I am following my two brothers.
Have you seen them on the way?”
"Seen your brothers?” he queried with
what I thought was a touch of exaspera¬
tion. "How should I know, when I meet
so many?”
I quickly described to him the appear¬
ance of my brothers. But still he shook
his head. Then he asked sharply:
"They were walking, of course?”
"No,” I replied. "I heard your voice
say that their chairs were ready.”
He nodded. "I know whom you mean,
now.” Beckoning to me to follow, he
turned and began retracing his steps, mov¬
ing in the same direction as the crowd.
After traveling for a space in silence, I
asked him: "Why do all these folk walk?
You told my brothers that their carrying-
chairs were waiting, yet I have seen no
chairs on this road.”
He answered curtly: "Those who ride
are men whose services are needed on
high. They take another path—but their
destination is the same as these.”
"But why do these men and women
wear such sad faces?”
"That should not be difficult to guess!
They are the foolish ones who are not yet
willing to give up the world.”
Here my further questions concerning
these fellow pilgrims were cut short. We
had arrived at an incredibly steep ascent.
I offered to assist my guide, who seemed
too old to hope to negotiate it. He ig¬
nored my outstretched hand and mounted
the path with all the vigor of youth.
At the summit the path debouched
upon a great plateau. Here a girl stood,
garbed in beautiful silks but with vacant,
indrawn eyes as of one who day-dreams.
With graceful yet mechanical gestures,
she ladled, from a white jade jar that was
apparently inexhaustible, a liquid. It was
golden in color and fragrant with the nec¬
tar of a thousand blended fruits. The
ascent had been so wearisome and the per¬
fume of the draft so enticing that each
traveler drank his fill.
I would gladly have joined the patient
line, each awaiting his turn to drink, his
eyes fixed hypnotically upon the golden
liquid, but the Messenger caught my arm
firmly and swung me past. He paid no
 FLIGHT
heed to my remonstrances. After a mo¬
ment I saw why he had been unwilling
for me to partake of the draft. For,
stretching out as far as the eye could
reach, lay the recumbent bodies of trav¬
elers who had gone before. Countless
thousands of them.
"They have drunk the wine of forget¬
fulness,” said my guide. "This is the Gar¬
den of Rest, after their long and painful
journey and their steep climb.”
"What is the duration of their sleep?”
"They remain here for ten Kalpas. If
die good they have done in the world
does not survive that period, they will be
lost in eternal sleep.”
"But my brothers!” I said in alarm.
"Perhaps the}' are sleeping here. Sleeping
the allotted ten times ten eons.”
"No. Those who travel in the carry¬
ing-chairs have not been wearied by the
journey—and they are not tempted to
drink. Did I not tell you that your
brothers were needed on high?”
We walked along in the grayness, pick¬
ing our way amid the sleeping figures.
So engrossed was I that I held my eyes on
the ground. The Messenger spoke:
"Lift your face. See those gleams of
light ahead? They presage the dawn of
heavenly existence for those whose good
works in life have endured.”
I looked into the zenith. Swinging
across the heavens in mighty striadons
were clouds of gay and brilliant colors.
But before I had time to savor their
magnificence and beauty, my guide com¬
manded:
"Touch the sleeve of my robe.”
I obeyed and instantly we were borne
into ethereal space. The Garden of Rest
stretched out limitlessly below, dotted
with its tiny, sleeping figures. I saw the
steep hill where the hordes were toiling
upward with such pertinacity—to obliv¬
ion.
399
T he sensation of motion ceased.
found that I no longer touched the
I
sleeve of the Messenger’s robe. I stood
alone on the summit of a verdured hill.
Just below me, a stream of chiming sil¬
ver flowed through flower-embossed
meadows. The Garden of Rest and its
travelers had vanished. Approaching me
were two persons, their robes glittering in
the warm rosy light, so different from that
cool gray illumination that had tinged the
horizon above the countless sleeping pil¬
grims. Like two young gods the pair ap¬
proached me.
I stared an instant, dazzled; then I ran
toward them with a glad cry of recogni¬
tion. They each caught me by the hand.
"Why have you come here?” my eldest
brother asked. "We had not heard that
you were summoned.” His voice was
gentle, yet puzzled.
"To see you! To see you both!” I
answered eagerly. "Is this where you
dwell?”
"Beyond the stream,” my younger
brother replied.
I looked and now, for the first time, I
saw, hazily dim, rows of lofty, temple¬
like buildings. Their roofs gleamed
with the patina of gold lacquer.
"So many of them?” I asked, bemused.
They smiled at me and my elder brother
spoke: "Not for us alone. Our parents
are there, and so are cur forefathers.”
"Our father and mother?” I cried.
"Let me go to them! I must see them!”
The smile on the lips of my two broth¬
ers was replaced by a look of sadness.
"No,” my elder brother said quietly.
"It is not yet time for you to see them.
You are meeting us only because you must
have seized that precious moment when
we were allowed to return to look upon
you for the last time.” Reluctantly but
firmly he took my younger brother by the
arm and turned away.
"Wait!” I cried out in alarm. "Don’t
400 WEIRD TALES
go, yet! I have only seen you for an in¬
stant!”
"Perhaps”—myyounger brother’s voice
was uncertain—"perhaps They will not be
angry if we go a brief way with you on
your return journey.”
"But I do not wish to return!” I said
despairingly.
But even as I spoke, a strand of rosy
cloud drifted down and wrapped me in
soft, warm mist. I could no longer see
my brothers but I could feel the hand of
each on my arms. Gently they pushed
me forward. I could detect that we were
climbing a hill but one not so steep as that
tortuous rise just preceding the entry to
the Garden of Rest.
Then the cloud thinned slightly and I
found myself on the verge of a sheer
precipice. I could still feel the reassuring
pressure of my brothers’ hands but I
could not see them. I stared in horror at
the yawning, mist-filled depths below,
then closed my eyes to shut out the view.
I felt the cliff shake and crack. It be¬
came detached and down we dropped.
Yet the descent was slow and gentle. I
opened my eyes but discerned nothing;
that same cloud was masking my vision.
I had the sensation that I was coming
nearer and nearer the earth, as that des¬
cent continued. At last we came to a halt.
"Where are we?” I asked.
"At a wayside resting-place.” It was
my younger brother’s voice. It came
from my right.
I could not feel the pressure of my
elder brother’s hand and, as though read¬
ing my mind, my younger brother volun¬
teered:
"He has gone only for a moment, to
bring his pearls to show you.”
"His pearls?” I repeated in surprize.
"Yes,” affirmed my younger brother.
"While we wait, I will show you mine.
Put out your hand.”
He poured into my palm a number of
satiny, smooth stones. By bringing them
near my eyes I could distinguish an un¬
earthly, glorious luster, like—yet strange¬
ly unlike—pearls.
"Where did you get such as these?” I
asked.
"From home. They are from my wife’s
heart. . . . They were once her tears.”
"Then, in this life, you remember those
who linger in the world?”
"Of course-” His voice broke off,
for there was a stir in the mist at my left.
1 knew that my elder brother had re¬
turned, and was glad. But my joy was
only brief. His voice came firmly:
"We have overstayed our time. We
must both leave you.”
"No!” I cried vehemently. "I have
come this far! I will follow you—on and
on!”
"That is impossible,” my elder brother
went on. "You have many good deeds
to perform. Such are the materials for
your palace. Stone by stone, you must
build it, for even we—much as we love
you—can not do that. It will be one of
that number which you saw, across the
stream and the meadows.”
"But I want no palace!” I shouted in
panic. "1 ask no more than to be with
you now!”
I reached frantically forward and
sought the hand of each. They did not
object but gently returned my frenzied
pressure. . . . For an instant the mist
lifted. I saw their faces smiling at
me. . . .
A gain the mist lowered. My hands,
although warm and tingling, were
empty. Then, into the swirling grayness,
a light began to penetrate. From a tiny
pin-point of color it enlarged. I recog¬
nized it—my whale-oil lamp.
And, on the table before me, still lay
the telegram announcing the accidental
death of my two brothers.
W. T.—7

By VIOLET A. METHLEY
Croft’s efforts to keep the golf course in good condition met with weird
obstacles from out of the past
T WO men in plus-fours tramped
over the crest of the down. The
taller could best be described as
bluff; the other smaller, slimmer, paced
more slowly, his lips moving as he meas¬
ured the yards. Frowning, he made en¬
tries in a notebook, examined every
crease and fold in the ground, with an
eye keen as the hawk’s, hovering over¬
head.
"Grand site, eh? High—breezy—fine
views-” The bigger man waved his
hand with large vagueness, and his com¬
panion nodded approvingly, with pursed
lips.
"Perfect—couldn’t have done it better
if I’d planned it myself from the begin¬
ning.”
Thus did Mr. Seton Croft congratulate
the Almighty upon the creation of an
ideal natural golf course, and did so with¬
out any conscious conceit. For years he
had practised golf-course construction;
he was without a rival in craft and sub¬
tlety of bunkers and hazards, and it was
his boast never to make two holes alike.
"Good!” Gilbert Scayles, owner of the
land, beamed complacently. "Then we’ll
get it in hand at once—open next Easter,
eh? I’ll give you a free hand about en¬
gaging labor, and you and your wife can
live at the lodge to keep an eye on
things.”
Seton Croft nodded absent-mindedly.
"This stretch will make a grand
twelfth hole—the longest on the course,”
he said thoughtfully. "Five hundred
W. T.—8
ilk Carts
yards of turf for fairway—trees on one
side—sand pits on the other. Put an arti¬
ficial bunker midway—and there’s the
twelfth green.”
They were now on the crest of the
down; only the mounds of the Roman
camp rose higher, and Croft pointed to
the half-moon of sandy hollows and out¬
cropping rock which ended the vista.
As they set off toward it, along the
natural fairway, the golf-architect came
to a frowning standstill, staring down.
"Sinful, positively sinful!” he mut¬
tered. "A glorious fairway spoilt like
that.”
Right across, from side to side, ran the
furrows of wheel-tracks, bitten through
the soft skin of turf to the flesh and bone
of chalk and rock beneath.
"By Gad, yes—a confounded shame!”
Scayles bent to examine the ruts. "They
must be turfed over, and I’ll stop anyone
from driving this way in future. I’ve
got all rights over the land, and I’ll see
to it at once.”
"We’ll get the ruts leveled and turfed
first thing, then,” Croft commented.
"Yes, as I thought, the green almost plans
itself; it should be one of the best holes
on the course.”
Seton Croft was not the man to let
grass grow under his feet, except where
such grass was required, on a new golf
course. Within a week, expert labor was
engaged and he was established with his
wife in the lodge, spending his days on
the course, his evenings with a large sand-
401
402 WEIRD TALES
filled tray, in which he had constructed
a fascinating small-scale model, complete
even to the tiny flags on the greens. Croft
was a methodical man.
After giving orders for the first rough-
ing-out of the whole course, he concen¬
trated his own attention upon the plan¬
ning of the first hole, a difficult bit of
work. Consequently, it was not for two
or three weeks that he took a general sur¬
vey to see how the work was progressing,
and, in the course of it, reached the
twelfth hole, and walked along the fair¬
way to view the returfing of the furrows.
Once again, Croft stopped short.
"Look here, Long!” he summoned one
of the workmen busy on the twelfth
green. "Didn’t I give particular orders
that these ruts were to be leveled and
turfed?”
"Yes, sir, and so they were,” the man
spoke aggrievedly. "But yesterday eve¬
ning or early this morning carts have been
along the track again, tearing it up like
you see.”
"Confound them!” Croft, who rarely
swore, broke out furiously. "Get it put
right as soon as possible, and I’ll speak
to Mr. Scayles at once. This shan’t hap¬
pen again.”
Scayles was as indignant as could be
wished. Notice-boards were set up, or¬
ders sent all round the estate, whilst Croft
concentrated upon the repair of the dam¬
age, laying fresh soil in the ruts, apply¬
ing turf like new-grafted skin.
Inquiries had not led to the discovery
of the culprits; all the cart-owners in the
neighborhood denied having driven
across the golf course; as one of them put
it, reasonably enough:
"It isn’t a short cut anywhere, and it
don’t lead nowhere, so what’d be the
sense of doing it?”
But the trouble was not over. Two
days after all had been put right, Croft
took his wife round the course, to hear
her opinion of it as a practical golfer,
which he himself was not. She was prop¬
erly and satisfactorily enthusiastic—until
they reached the fairway of the twelfth
hole. And there, once again, the turf
was tom transversely by those deeply bit¬
ten cart-tracks.
Croft lost his temper completely for
once.
"It’ll never be in condition now by the
time of the opening,” he declared. "It
must be some cursed swine of villagers
who’ve made up their minds that it’s a
right of way across the course, and drive
their carts over it on purpose.”
In corroboration of his words came a
voice from dose by, and the Crofts be¬
came aware of an aged rustic, with
gnarled hands clasped on the top of a
knotted stick from which they were al¬
most indistinguishable. He worked his
toothless mouth and blinked rheumy
eyes, speaking quaveringly.
"Eee, Mester, ’e’ll niver keep them ruts
smooth, niver in this world,” he mouthed.
"They’ll be druv theer agin.”
"Why—do you know who makes
them?” Croft demanded.
"Iss—iss!” the old fellow nodded shak¬
ily. "For sure I do. ’Tes the milk-
carts.”
"Where from? Whose milk-carts are
they?” Croft asked.
“Can’t tell ’ee that. But they do al¬
ways come, tearing up the ruts, whativer
’ee do. Rattling and clattering, they
comes, all the cans a-jangling—they pla-
guey milk-carts!”
T he old man shuffled away, mum¬
bling. Croft could obtain no more
information from him, nor did further
inquiries help matters much. Scayles and
his steward both insisted that there were
no dairy-farms with carts and cans in the
neighborhood. Moreover, old Ted Hol¬
lins was known to be soft in the brain.
 THE MILK CARTS
and you could not take anything he said
for truth; he rambled most of his time.
Nevertheless, the old man’s words had
made an impression upon Croft, which
was to be unpleasantly revived some
weeks after the ruts had once more been
repaired. For the architect returned to
the lodge and his wife one lunchtime,
with looks which boded disaster.
"Those cursed carts again!” he burst
out. "Deeper tracks than ever. It’s the
most deliberate blackguardism I ever saw,
and there must be connivance in the dis¬
trict. Scayles is furious, and I’m about
ready to chuck the whole thing. You
can’t work against determined opposition
like this—it’s heartbreaking.”
"You’d feel worse if you gave up,” his
wife said wisely, and Croft nodded, with
gloomy assent.
"You’re right. I’d rather catch the
brutes. The workmen are inclined to
give trouble, too—want me to alter the
lie of the hole, say they’ll make the turf
good this once, but not again. And I
can’t coerce ’em; if those fellows turn
sulky and strike work, we’ll never get
the job done in time.”
"It’s absolutely sickening—but what
can you do, dear, to prevent it happening
again?” Mrs. Croft said sympathetically.
To that question Croft supplied an an¬
swer on the evening after the re-turfing
had been again finished. After dinner,
he put on his boots again, with a grimly
set mouth.
"Going out again, dear?” his wife
asked.
"Yes—going to spend the night at the
twelfth hole,” Croft told her. "Going to
spend every night there, till I catch those
scoundrels. I’m not taking any chance
this time; if they come again, they’ll have
me to reckon with. Don’t fuss, old girl.”
Being a wise wife, Mrs. Croft did not.
She contented herself with making sure
that her husband put on a warm over¬
403
coat, and took a packet of sandwiches
and a whisky-flask in the pockets.
T he night was overcast, with a dim
moon giving an air of unreality to
the whole scene, which Croft felt vaguely,
as he took a short cut across die course
toward the twelfth fairway.
He walked along the edge of the
rough, where sorrel and scabious grew in
the yellowish grass. A little squealing
creature ran out from almost under his
feet, a bird gave a feeble pipe; otherwise
it was very silent.
Croft reached a point where the ground
fell away on the left, whilst to the right
the slope rose smoothly toward the earth¬
works of die Roman camp, except for a
deep cleft in the downs sparsely filled
with bushes. The twelfth green was no
more than fifty yards a^-ay; the newly-
placed turves showed in bright stripes
across the brownish-green of the fairway.
Croft glanced toward them anxiously, but
they were smooth and untouched, and
with a sigh of relief he sat down on the
edge of the fairway.
It was a lonely vigil. Croft smoked,
ate his sandwiches, sat gazing out over
the wide, misty stretch of valley, playing
fantastically with the idea of it as a huge
golf course to be planned, that distant
ridge a bunker—that rising field a green.
But it was all rather dream-like; Croft
was half dozing when the first sound
broke the stillness, a clank-clank-clank of
metal, the jangle of cans. Old Ted was
right then—the milk-carts were coming.
Croft sprang to his feet and looked
round. The clanking jangle grew louder,
coming from the rising ground on the
right, the bush-filled cleft. He thought,
now, he could catch men’s voices, and
the trampling of horse-hoofs was unmis¬
takable.
Anger and irritation came surging
back. These malicious boors thought
404 WEIRD TALES
they’d have it all their own way again,
did they? Well, they should find out!
Croft grasped the stick which he carried
and advanced in the direction of the
growing sounds.
Suddenly, with clatter of metal and
creak of harness a vehicle emerged from
the chalk-deft and swung down'toward
the smooth turf of the fairway. It was
driven, milk-cart fashion, by a driver who
stood behind the high, curved front, and
behind could be caught a glimpse of an¬
other, and another. Croft strode for¬
ward, raising his stick threateningly.
"Here, you get way out of this!” he
cried. "You’ve no business here. If
you claim any rights, do it through the
law courts, not by wilful destruction
of-”
His voice trailed off, for no answer
came from the driver, and he urged his
horse forward steadily. More furious
than he had ever been in his life before,
Croft snatched at the bridle.
As he did so, something thrust him on
one side, some power, scarcely physical,
which stunned and bewildered him. He
found himself a-sprawl on the turf, with
the vehicle sweeping by, clattering, jan¬
gling, followed by another, and another.
Gleaming with metal-work, drawn by
horses under high yokes, they were not
quite milk-carts, Croft realized, dragging
himself on to his knees and staring in
amazement. The drivers were swarthy,
with strong features, and thick bodies, in
closely molded leather jerkins.
Straight across the fairway they drove,
wheeling into the rough grass beyond;
one shouted to another in a strange
tongue, which was somehow familiar, and
they were off, with a clatter and jingle,
the drivers bending low—cracking their
long whips.
And Croft still watched, dazed and be¬
wildered. . . ,
Now they were returning at breakneck
speed; they passed close to him; with a
clatter and jangle, with a roar and a swirl
they were gone, up and away toward the
silent, dominant earthworks of the Roman
camp.
But Seton Croft, golf-architect, sat hud¬
dled on the dry grass, trying to realize
what strange spectacle he had seen in the
misty moonlight, and what was its mean¬
ing.
"Chariots—Roman soldiers chariot¬
racing, men from the camp on the hill,”
he whispered. "This is where they did
their training, when they were in garri¬
son here—by Gad, yes!”
Presently he rose, and went to where
the deep wheel-ruts showed on the new-
laid turf, stood staring for some moments.
It was almost daylight when he reached
the lodge, and found a heavy-eyed wife
waiting for him anxiously.
"My dear, you must be half dead,” she
fussed over him. "I’ve made a fire, so
sit down and get warm, and drink this
cocoa—Seton, how funny and dazed you
look. Did you catch them?”
"Yes,” Croft answered. "I caught
them in the a a.”
"Oh, the wretches! How dared they?
Did you give them in charge?”
"No,” Croft spoke slowly. "You see,
they proved to me that they had a prior
claim to be there. ... I rather think I
shall alter that hole after all.”
S o THAT is why the twelfth hole of
Seton Croft’s latest masterpiece in
golf courses takes quite an unexpected
direction. He tells people who criticize
it that there are a lot of things to con¬
sider in country districts—rights of user,
for instance. It only makes trouble to
go against the older inhabitants of a
place, when you’re laying out a golf
course, Croft says wisely.
A Shorty Shuddery Story
Uhe
^Thing in the Cellar
By DAVID H. KELLER
I T WAS a large cellar, entirely out of
proportion to the house above it.
The owner admitted that it was prob¬
ably built for a distinctly different kind
of structure from the one which rose
above it. Probably the first house had
been burned, and poverty had caused a
diminution of the dwelling erected to
take its place.
A winding stone stairway connected
the cellar with the kitchen. Around the
base of this series of steps successive
owners of the house had placed their
firewood, winter vegetables and junk.
The junk had gradually been pushed
back till it rose, head high, in a barricade
of uselessness. What was back of that
barricade no one knew and no one cared.
For some hundreds of years no one had
crossed it to penetrate to the black
reaches of the cellar behind it.
At the top of the steps, separating the
kitchen from the cellar, was a stout oaken
door. This door was, in a way, as pecu¬
liar and out of relation to the rest of the
house as the cellar. It was a strange
kind of door to find in a modern house,
and certainly a most unusual door to find
in the inside of the house—thick, stoutly
built, dexterously rabbeted together, with
huge wrought-iron hinges, and a lock that
looked as though it came from Castle
Despair. Separating a house from the
outside world, such a door would be ex¬
cusable; swinging between kitchen and
cellar it seemed peculiarly inappropriate.
From the earliest months of his life
Tommy Tucker seemed unhappy in the
kitchen. In the front parlor, in the for¬
mal dining-room, and especially on the
second floor of the house he acted like a
normal, healthy child; but carry him to
the kitchen, he at once began to cry. His
parents, being plain people, ate in the
kitchen save when they had company.
Being poor, Mrs. Tucker did most of her
work, though occasionally she had a char¬
woman in to do the extra Saturday
cleaning, and thus much of her time was
spent in the kitchen. And Tommy
stayed with her, at least as long as he
was unable to walk. Much of the time
he was decidedly unhappy.
When Tommy learned to creep, he lost
no time in leaving the kitchen. No
sooner was his mother’s back turned than
the little fellow crawled as fast as he
could for the doorway opening into the
front of the house, the dining-room and
the front parlor. Once away from the
kitchen, he seemed happy; at least, he
ceased to cry. On being returned to the
kitchen his howls so thoroughly con¬
vinced the neighbors that he had colic
that more than one bowl of catnip and
sage tea was brought to his assistance.
It was not until the boy learned to talk
that the Tuckers had any idea as to what
made the boy cry so hard when he was
in the kitchen. In other words, the
baby had to suffer for many months till
he obtained at least a little relief, and
even when he told his parents what was
the matter, they were absolutely unable
to comprehend. This is not to be won¬
dered at, because they were both hard¬
working, rather simple-minded persons.
What they finally learned from their
405
406 WEIRD TALES
little son was this: that if the cellar door
was shut and securely fastened with the
heavy iron lock, Tommy could at least
eat a meal in peace; if the door was sim¬
ply closed and not locked, he shivered
with fear, but kept quiet; but if the door
was open, if even the slightest streak of
black showed that it was not tightly shut,
then the little three-year-old would
scream himself to the point of exhaus¬
tion, especially if his tired father would
refuse him permission to leave the
kitchen.
Playing in the kitchen, the child de¬
veloped two interesting habits. Rags,
scraps of paper and splinters of wood
were continually being shoved under the
thick oak door to fill the space between
the door and the sill. Whenever Mrs.
Tucker opened the door there was always
some trash there, placed by her son. It
annoyed her, and more than once the lit¬
tle fellow was thrashed for this conduct,
but punishment acted in no way as a
deterrent. The other habit was as singu¬
lar. Once the door was closed and
locked, he would rather boldly walk over
to it and caress the old lock. Even when
he was so small that he had to stand on
tiptoe to touch it with the tips of his
fingers he would touch it with slow
caressing strokes; later on, as he grew, he
used to kiss it.
His father, who only saw the boy at
the end of the day, decided that there was
no sense in such conduct, and in his mas¬
culine way tried to break the lad of his
foolishness. There was, of necessity, no
effort on the part of the hard-working
man to understand the psychology back
of his son’s conduct. All that the man
knew was that his little son was acting
in a way that was decidedly queer.
Tommy loved his mother and was
willing to do anything he could to help
her in the household chores, but one
thing he would not do, and never did do,
and that was to fetch and carry between
the house and the cellar. If his mother
opened the door, he would run screaming
from the room, and he never returned vol¬
untarily till he was assured that the door
was closed.
He never explained just why he acted
as he did. In fact, he refused to talk
about it, at least to his parents, and that
was just as well, because had he done so,
they would simply have been more posi¬
tive than ever that there was something
wrong with their only child. They
tried, in their own ways, to break the
child of his unusual habits; failing to
change him at all, they decided to ignore
his peculiarities.
That is, they ignored them till he be¬
came six years old and the time came for
him to go to school. He was a sturdy
little chap by that time, and more intelli¬
gent than the usual boys beginning in the
primer class. Mr. Tucker was, at times,
proud of him; the child’s attitude toward
the cellar door was the one thing most
disturbing to the father’s pride. Finally
nothing would do but that the Tucker
family call on the neighborhood physi¬
cian. It w-as an important event in the
life of the Tuckers, so important that it
demanded the wearing of Sunday clothes,
and all that sort of thing.
"The matter is just this, Doctor Haw¬
thorn,” said Mr. Tucker, in a somewhat
embarrassed manner. "Our little Tommy
is old enough to start to school, but he
behaves childish in regard to our cellar,
and the missus and I thought you could
tell us how to do about it. It must be
his nerves.”
"Ever since he was a baby,” continued
Mrs. Tucker, taking up the thread of con¬
versation where her husband had paused,
"Tommy has had a great fear of the cel¬
lar. Even now, big boy that he is, he
does not love me enough to fetch and
carry for me through that door and down
 THE THING IN THE CELLAR
those steps. It is not natural for a child
to act like he does, and what with chink¬
ing the cracks with rags and kissing the
lock, he drives me to the point where I
fear he may become daft-like as he grows
older.”
The doctor, eager to satisfy new cus¬
tomers, and dimly remembering some lec¬
tures on the nervous system received when
he was a medical student, asked some
general questions, listened to the boy’s
heart, examined his lungs and looked at
his eyes and fingernails. At last he com¬
mented:
"Looks like a fine, healthy boy to me.”
"Yes, all except the cellar door,” re¬
plied the father.
"Has he ever been sick?”
"Naught but fits once or twice when
he cried himself blue in the face,” an¬
swered the mother.
"Frightened?”
"Perhaps. It was always in the
kitchen.”
"Suppose you go out and let me talk
to Tommy by myself?”
And there sat the doctor very much at
his ease and the little six-year-old boy
very uneasy.
"Tommy, what is there in the cellar
you are afraid of?”
"I don’t know.”
"Have you ever seen it?”
"No, sir.”
"Ever heard it? smelt it?”
"No, sir.”
"Then how do you know there is some¬
thing there?”
"Because.”
"Because what?”
"Because there is.”
That was as far as Tommy would go,
and at last his seeming obstinacy an¬
noyed the physician even as it had for
several years annoyed Mr. Tucker. He
went to the door and called the parents
into the office.
407
"He thinks there is something down
in the cellar,” he stated.
The Tuckers simply looked at each
other.
"That’s foolish,” commented Mr.
Tucker.
" ’Tis just a plain cellar with junk and
firewood and cider barrels in it,” added
Mrs. Tucker. "Since we moved into that
house, I have not missed a day without
going down those stone steps and I know
there is nothing there. But the lad has
always screamed when the door was open.
I recall now that since he was a child in
arms he has always screamed when the
door was open.”
"He thinks there is something there,”
said the doctor.
"That is why we brought him to you,"
replied the father. "It’s the child’s nerves.
Perhaps foetida, or something, will calm
him.”
"I tell you what to do,” advised the
doctor. "He thinks there is something
there. Just as soon as he finds that he is
wrong and that there is nothing there,
he will forget about it. He has been hu¬
mored too much. What you want to do
is to open that cellar door and make him
stay by himself in the kitchen. Nail the
door open so he can not close it. Leave
him alone there for an hour and then go
and laugh at him and show him how silly
it was for him to be afraid of an empty
cellar. I will give you some nerve and
blood tonic and that will help, but the
big thing is to show him that there is
nothing to be afraid of.”
O N the way back to the Tucker home
Tommy broke away from his par¬
ents. They caught him after an exciting
chase and kept him between them the
rest of the way home. Once in the house
he disappeared and was found in the
guest room under the bed. The afternoon
being already spoiled for Mr. Tucker, he
408 WEIRD TALES
determined to keep the child under obser¬
vation for the rest of the day. Tommy
ate no supper, in spite of the urgings of
the unhappy mother. The dishes were
washed, the evening paper read, the
evening pipe smoked; and then, and only
then, did Mr. Tucker take down his tool
box and get out a hammer and some long
nails.
"And I am going to nail the door
open, Tommy, so you can not close it, as
that was what the doctor said, Tommy,
and you are to be a man and stay here
in the kitchen alone for an hour, and we
will leave the lamp a-burning, and then
when you find there is naught to be afraid
of, you will be well and a real man and
not something for a man to be ashamed
of being the father of.”
But at the last Mrs. Tucker kissed
Tommy and cried and whispered to her
husband not to do it, and to wait till the
boy was larger; but nothing was to do
except to nail the thick door open so it
could not be shut and leave the boy there
alone with the lamp burning and the dark
open space of the doorway to look at with
eyes that grew as hot and burning as the
flame of the lamp.
That same day Doctor Hawthorn took
supper with a classmate of his, a man who
specialized in psychiatry and who was par¬
ticularly interested in children. Haw¬
thorn told Johnson about his newest case,
the little Tucker boy, and asked him for
his opinion. Johnson frowned.
"Children are odd, Hawthorn. Per¬
haps they are like dogs. It may be their
nervous system is more acute than in the
adult. We know that our eyesight is lim¬
ited, also our hearing and smell. I firmly
believe that there are forms of life which
exist in such a form that we can neither
see, hear nor smell them. Fondly we de¬
lude ourselves into the fallacy of believ¬
ing that they do not exist because we can
not prove their existence. This Tucker
lad may have a nervous system that is
peculiarly acute. He may dimly appreci¬
ate the existence of something in the cel¬
lar which is unappreciable to his parents.
Evidently there is some basis to this fear
of his. Now, I am not saying that there
is anything in the cellar. In fact, I sup¬
pose that it is just an ordinary cellar, but
this boy, since he was a baby, has thought
that there was something there, and that
is just as bad as though there actually
were. What I would like to know is
what makes him think so. Give me the
address, and I will call tomorrow and
have a talk with the little fellow.”
"What do you think of my advice?”
"Sorry, old man, but I think it was
perfectly rotten. If I were you, I would
stop around there on my way home and
prevent them from following it. The
little fellow may be badly frightened.
You see, he evidently thinks there is
something there.”
"But there isn’t.”
"Perhaps not. No doubt, he is wrong,
but he thinks so.”
I T all worried Doctor Hawthorn so
much that he decided to take his
friend’s advice. It was a cold night, a
foggy night, and the physician felt cold
as he tramped along the London streets.
At last he came to the Tucker house. He
remembered now that he had been there
once before, long ago, when little Tommy
Tucker came into the world. There was
a light in the front window, and in no
time at all Mr. Tucker came to the door.
"I have come to see Tommy,” said
the doctor.
"He is back in the kitchen,” replied the
father.
"He gave one cry, but since then he has
been quiet,” sobbed the wife.
"If I had let her have her way, she
would have opened the door, but I said
to her, 'Mocher, now is the time to make
 THE THING IN THE CELLAR 409

a man out of our Tommy.' And I guess
he knows by now that there was naught
to be afraid of. Well, the hour is up.
Suppose we go and get him and put him
to bed?”
"It has been a hard time for the little
child,” whispered the wife.
Carrying the candle, the man walked
ahead of the woman and the doctor, and
at last opened the kitchen door. The room
was dark.
"Lamp has gone out,” said the man.
"Wait till I light it."
"Tommy! Tommy!” called Mrs. Tuck¬
er.
But the doctor ran to where a white
form was stretched on the floor. Sharply
he called for more light. Trembling, he
examined all that was left of little
Tommy. Twitching, he looked into the
open space down into the cellar. At last
he looked at Tucker and Tucker’s wife.
"Tommy—Tommy has been hurt—I
guess he is dead!” he stammered.
The mother threw herself on the floor
and picked up the torn, mutilated thing
that had been, only a little while ago, her
little Tommy.
The man took his hammer and drew
out the nails and closed the door and
locked it and then drove in a long spike
to reinforce the lock. Then he took hold
of the doctor's shoulders and shook him.
"What killed him, Doctor? What
killed him?” he shouted into Hawthorn’s
ear.
The doctor looked at him bravely in
spite of the fear in his throat.
"How do I know, Tucker?” he replied.
"How do I know? Didn’t you tell me
that there was nothing there? Nothing
down there? In the cellar?”

^.^/aughter in the Night

By AUGUST W. DERLETH and MARK SCHORER

A hideous burst of laughter from the moor where the gallows tree
had stood portended tragedy

M R. WILLIAM HANLEY cursed

as his machine stuck in the drive
that entered the courtyard of the
Antler Inn. He put the motor into reverse
and tried to bade out of the deep muddy
ruts; the w'heels ground in the mud, but
the machine did not move. The rain came
down in blinding sheets, and despite his
strong headlights, Hanley could hardly
make out the shape of the inn as it loomed
faintly up in the night a hundred yards
ahead of him. Nothing to do but run for
it, he thought. He pulled up the collar of
his coat, put his brief-case under his arm,
and ducked out of the machine across the
slippery and apparently grassless court¬
yard to the veranda of the inn.
He pounded loudly on the door, won¬
dering whether the landlord could hear
his knock above the sound of the rain
beating down, and the howl of the wind.
Mr. Hanley was shivering in the cold
410 WEIRD TALES
when the door opened a bit, and a woman
looked out. When she saw the man
standing there with his coat drawn up
around his ears and the rain dripping off
the brim of his hat, she opened the door
quickly and let him in.
A little puddle of water formed where
Mr. Hanley stood just inside the door.
He held his dripping hat in his hand and
asked for a room.
"I’m sorry,” the hostess said, "but we
are full up.”
Mr. Hanley frowned. "You must have
some place where I can stay for the
night!”
"Nothing, I’m afraid,” she said. Then
she added, a little dubiously, "Perhaps
you can find lodging at the Mason House
a few miles up the road?”
“But my car’s stuck out there, and it’s
an awful night to send a man out.” Mr.
Hanley smiled at her, looking very be¬
draggled in his soaked clothes; almost
wistfully he looked across the room to the
roaring fireplace.
"We have no room, sir. I’m sorry.”
No amount of persuasion could have
induced Mr. Hanley to leave the Antler
Inn that night, and the stubborn attitude
of the hostess did not shake his determina¬
tion to stay. Surely there was some place,
a little closet or a bench, where he could
spend the remainder of the night? No,
they were full up, she told him again.
But he had to stay somewhere—couldn’t
think of going out into that rain and wind
again. The hostess remained adamant.
He could not stay.
But at this point, the host, a large, burly
man, appeared from the rear of the inn.
He had evidently overheard part of the
conversation, for he stepped forward,
looking hard at the woman, and said,
"We’ll give you a room.”
For a moment the woman looked as if
she had not understood aright; then she
turned and faced her husband. "Not that
room, Peter?”
"That room,” said Peter.
"No, no,” the woman said, quickly, and
would perhaps have gone on to say more,
had not Mr. Hanley himself interrupted.,
"Look here,” he said, "if you have an
empty room, I see no reason why it
shouldn’t be put to use.”
The host nodded, and the woman
looked at him nervously. "There’s only
one provision,” the host went on. "If we
give you the room, you must promise not
to raise the shade on the window.”
Mr. Hanley looked at the man and
woman blankly for a moment. "That’s an
odd request,” he said at last. "Why do
you make it?”
A dubious glance passed between the
host and his wife. "There is madness
beyond that window,” said the woman
in a low voice.
Mr. Hanley frowned and looked at the
The host began to speak. "The win¬
dow opens on what was once a gallows
stand. Many highwaymen were hanged
there and there’s a curious story of a ghoul
who disturbed the bodies laid to rest
beneath the gallows tree.” He coughed.
"The last time the room was occupied, a
man lost his mind—he died later, I be¬
lieve. The room’s all right though. I’ve
seen a few things, of course, but there’s
nothing if you keep the shade down.”
"Very well,” agreed Mr. Hanley cheer¬
ily. Anything to end this, he thought.
"My car’s outside in the driveway,” he
added.
The woman nodded, remembering.
T he host was turning away when Mr.
Hanley spoke again. "By the way,
can you tell me how far I am from the
estate of Mr. Herbert Altamount?”
The host looked at him, pondering.
"About seven miles,” he said.
 LAUGHTER IN THE NIGHT
"Seven miles!” exclaimed Mr. Hanley.
"Why, I thought . . . that it was much
farther than that.”
"No, ’tisn’t,” said the host. "As a mat¬
ter of fact, this inn was once Altamount
property.”
Mr. Hanley was led up the stairs and
shown into the room. Alone, he stood
for a minute with his back to the door,
thinking. "I must have been going in a
circle all the time,” he murmured, tug¬
ging in some perplexity at his mustache.
"Confound that rain!”
He looked around him. What a cozy
room it was, after all! Instinctively he
glanced at the single window, over which
hung attractive chintz curtains; behind
them was the dull brown of the shade.
What nonsense, he thought, not to raise
the shade! He gave his attention finally
to unpacking his things.
He finished at last and took up a book
to read. He wondered, as he sat down,
whether they had put his motor in shelter.
And more important, whether it was pos¬
sible for any one to find him; the rain, he
felt sure, would wipe out all traces.
He had just started to read when there
came a knock on his door, and a moment
after, the host’s face, now remarkably
timid, peered in at him.
"I’m sorry,” he began apologetically,
"but I didn’t want you to think that there
was anything about my story not quite
right.”
"Oh,” said Mr. Hanley coldly.
"You see, there really was a ghoul.
They hanged him on the gallows tree; he
was the last to die there. They say he
went mad at the last, and they couldn’t
stop him laughing at them. Only the rope
choked him off. Now, sometimes, if you
lift the shade—he comes back. He isn’t
a pleasant sight, but he’ll not do you any
harm. But sometimes he brings some¬
thing about, somehow his laughter kills
411
people. But that’s only when they've
done something wrong.”
Mr. Hanley started suddenly, looking
sharply at his host. "What do you mean?”
he asked curtly.
"Well,” the host coughed a little, "last
year we found a tenant dead here. We’d
warned him, but he wouldn’t listen, and
later on we’d found he was a man who’d
undergone trial for murder but got out of
everything by a clever trick. Another time
it was an escaped convict, a murderer.
Both of them were distant relatives of old
Mr. Altamount over yonder.” He coughed
again. "As a matter of fact,” he went on,
"there’s a queer story connected with the
appearance of this ghoul.”
"What is it?” asked Mr. Hanley. He
had begun, inexplicably, to feel nervous.
Did the host suspect anything? he won¬
dered.
"The last man hanged, the ghoul, they
said, was the last of the old Altamount
line. It is still said hereabouts that he was
innocent, that he was wrongly convicted,
and sent to the gallows by the present Mr.
Altamount and his relatives, because they
wanted his lands and wealth. And it is
true that they got all he had, after they
had sworn that he had been robbing the
graveyards hereabouts. Just before he
went to the gallows, the condemned man
swore that from that time on the Alta¬
mount family would decline, and that it
would come to an end with this genera¬
tion. And it is strange that so many of
them have died. It is said, too, that the
condemned man swore that many would
turn to crime, and two of them have done
so, and even now they say that Mr.
Herbert Altamount and his London cous¬
in, the only one left, are mixed up in some
pretty bad business—swindling, they call
it.”
"Well, the ghoul seems to have proph¬
esied correctly, doesn’t he?” Mr. Hanley
assumed a bravado he did not feel.
412 WEIRD TALES
"That he does. The last thing he said
is not likely to come true, in my belief.”
"And that?’
"He promised to come back and haunt
the gallows tree until he had strangled
the last of the new Altamount line. And
since the ghost of that poor man won’t
move from here, I think Mr. Herbert
Altamount is quite safe.”
Mr. William Hanley wanted to say,
"But Mr. Altamount is not the last of the
line,” but instead, he said, "Have you
actually seen the ghost-ghoul?”
The host nodded slowly, and spoke re¬
luctantly. "I’ve seen something — I
wouldn’t say what. But, yes, I think I’ve
seen him.” The man looked at Mr. Han¬
ley helplessly. "You won’t raise the
shade?”
"No.”
Mr. Hanley shook his head. The host
bowed and withdrew. Immediately Mr.
Hanley’s eyes rested on the lowered shade.
The devil take the man! he thought. If I
want to raise that shade, I shall. Then he
turned back to his book and started to
read. He had begun again to feel nerv¬
ous. Perhaps there was something in that
story. If you had done wrong? How
would the specter know? Mr. Hanley
chuckled grimly. "I shall have to be very
careful,” he muttered, one eye on the
shade. There came to bother him with
peculiar insistency the vague memory of
an Altamount, and a cousin, both of
whom had met their deaths in a mysteri¬
ous fashion at an inn near the old estate.
H e had read seven pages, and all the
time he was reading he kept think¬
ing about the drawn shade, so that at last,
when he started on the eighth page, he
went over and raised it. Then he saw
that the moon had come out, and the wet
countryside glistened in the pale light. He
hesitated for a moment, looking out.
Then he went swiftly to his brief-case.
opened it a little, and looked in. Those
things were safe, at any rate. He was
beginning to feel a little shaky. Looking
at the papers in his brief-case, he won¬
dered whether after all it would not be
better to burn them. But abruptly he
gave up the idea. He drew his chair over
to the window and sat there; then he
turned to his book once more.
He had got a quarter of the way
through the book, which was a thin
volume, when he found himself looking
attentively out of the window. He had
seen out of the corner of his eye some fur¬
tive movement in the ghostly moonlight
below, and now his ears caught the sound
of low chuckling. He put the book aside
and pressed his face to the pane; then he
silently opened the window and leaned
out.
Yes, there was certainly a man prowl¬
ing about below. Could it be the land¬
lord? No, thought Mr. Hanley, for the
fellow was creeping about too secretly for
that. He fixed his eyes on the skulking
shadow and watched, fascinated. The
man was creeping forward in a straight
line of shadow. But there should be no
shadow, there, reflected Mr. Hanley—
unless- He looked up abruptly, and
there, reaching up into the sky, barren,
lifeless, he saw a gallows tree. He sat
struck with the suddenness of the thing—
he had thought the tree had been taken
down, but perhaps he had misunderstood.
How could these people leave the thing
standing there?
Tire creeping figure had come to the
foot of the galiows tree now, and it
turned its face suddenly and looked up
into the moonlight. Mr. Hanley jerked
sharply back at sight of it—his heart was
beating uncontrollably. The face below
him looked suddenly familiar to him—it
looked like the face of Herbert Alta¬
mount. He felt the blood throbbing in
his veins, and his collar seemed suffo-
 LAUGHTER IN THE NIGHT
eating. He ran his finger uneasily along
his collar, caressing his neck. He thought
abruptly, Suppose Altamount had recog¬
nized him? And, worse, suppose Alta¬
mount had been struck too hard; perhaps
he had . . . not recovered? Mr. Hanley
brushed the thought away quickly; his
hands were trembling as he put them
once more on the sill of the window and
bent to look out once again.
Then, as he looked down, Mr. Hanley
saw that the creature below was looking
squarely at him; even as Mr. Hanley
watched, the thing in the shadow of the
gallows tree began to move closer to the
wall. Abruptly Mr. Hanley fell back
with a strangled cry; the thing was coming
up! He leaped backward, but before he
could turn, the sound of mounting laugh¬
ter reached him, and a shadow launched
itself at him through the night.
T o the man and woman in the kitchen
below, there came the sudden sound
of terrible laughter. The woman stood
rooted; she looked at the man. Then
together they ran up the stairs, and in
terror they knocked on the door of Mr.
Hanley’s room. There was no answer;
so they tried the door, and it moved.
Abruptly the laughter stopped. The door
fell open wide, and they saw Mr. Hanley.
He was huddled in the chair by the
window, his head thrown back over the
heavy arm of the chair, as if he had jerked
himself from the window with terrible
force. His face was twisted and contorted
into the utmost horror, and the veins in
his forehead stood out like great cords.
His face was discolored. The mouth was
wide, wrenched open, gasping for air. On
his neck there were strangely darkening
marks—as if he had been strangled!
Then, as they stood there, Mr. Hanley’s
brief-case seemed to slide of itself off the
bed, papers scattering from it, and for a
moment a shadow crossed the moonlight
413
entering at the window; then it was gone.
The woman and her husband backed
quietly out of the room and ran hastily
down the stairs, where they stood cower¬
ing in the hall.
"I told you,” whimpered the woman.
"I told you.”
"Do you think he . . . saw?” asked
the man.
Then, suddenly, before the woman
could answer, there broke out from above,
the utter cosmic sound of uncontrollable
laughter!
"Oh! Oh!” whispered the woman in a
terror-struck voice. She choked in her
throat and leaned heavily on the man.
"He was dead. Dead!” The laughter
stopped as suddenly as it began.
There was an abrupt pounding on the
front door. Neither the host nor his wife
moved. The pounding was repeated, and
then the man lurched forward, moving
awkwardly. The woman came after him,
slowly, terror-stricken.
The door opened and a constable stood
there; behind him the host could see other
figures.
"Are you the proprietor?” asked the
constable.
The man nodded.
"We have traced a man here, a short
dark-haired man, with a little black
mustache. His name is Hanley, William
Hanley.”
"Upstairs,” said the host, waving his
head vaguely back toward the stairs. He
wanted to say, "But’s he’s dead,” but the
words stuck in his throat.
"I’m sorry,” said the constable, "but I
have a warrant for his arrest for the mur¬
der of his cousin, Mr. Herbert Altamount,
and the theft of some incriminating pa¬
pers.” He stepped forward briskly, look¬
ing inquiringly from the man to the
woman. Addressing the man, he said,
"Will you please lead the way?”
414 WEIRD TALES

The Eyrie
(Continued from page 294)

appear in an issue. By the way, is Kirk Mashburn the same as W. K. Mashbum, Jr.,
who gave us such splendid stories as Sola, Tony the Faithful and The Sword of
Jean Lafitte?” [Yes, this is the same man. He has simply shortened his name for
publication purposes.—The Editors.]
Robert E. Howard, himself an author of note, writes: "Congratulations on the
appearance and excellence of the current Weird Tales. The make-up and all the il¬
lustrations are unusually good, and the contents are of remarkably uniform merit.
That is what struck me—the high standard of all the stories in the issue. If i were
to express a preference for any one of the tales, I believe I should name Derleth’s
Those Who Seek—though the stories by Smith, Long, Hurst and Jacobi could
scarcely be excelled. In the latter’s tale especially there are glimpses that show finely
handled imagination almost in perfection—just enough revealed, just enough con¬
cealed. Smith’s sweep of imagination and fantasy is enthralling, but what capti¬
vates me most is the subtle, satiric humor that threads its delicate way through so
much of his work—a sly humor that equals the more subtle touches of Rabelais
and Petronius. Yes, I consider the current magazine uniformly fine, of an excel¬
lence surprizing considering the fact that neither Lovecraft, Quinn, Hamilton, White-
head, Kline nor Price was represented.”
Writes Fred E. Ebel, of Milwaukee: "I haven’t missed Weird Tales since the
Paleozoic age! Your best serial is The Wolf-Leader. Here is for more and larger
werewolves! Science-fiction is O. K. but keep it weird.”
Readers, which story do you like best in this issue? Your favorite stories in the
January Weird Tales, as shown by your letters and votes, are Clark Ashton Smith’s
fantasy, The Monster of the Prophecy, and the second installment of Gaston Leroux’s
serial, The Haunted Chair.

MY FAVORITE STORIES IN THE MARCH WEIRD TALES ARE:

Story Remarks
(1)- -
(2)- ---
(3)- -
I do not like the following stories:
(1) --Why?_

(2) ---

It will help us to know what kind of stories ^ Reader's name and address:
you want in Weird Tales if you will I
fill out this coupon and mail it to The |
Eyrie, Weird Tales, 840 N. Michigan Are., I-
Chicago, Ill. I_
 WEIRD TALES
The Vengeance of Ixmal
(Continued from page 309)
past cycle of my being. I know that love
is of that part of me that can never lie
with dust!”
"You shall not lift the curse,” Ixmal
grated, stepping closer.
O uickly, fearfully, as if afraid of be¬
ing cheated at the last moment of
centuries of waiting, Tascala slipped her
arms about Pembrooke’s neck. A heavy,
jewel-studded bracelet upon her wrist
scratched his flesh cruelly at her sudden
movement, so that he winced in pain. He
felt the blood trickle from the wound
down toward his shoulder.
"Blood!” Ixmal breathed into Tascala’s
ear, while he glared balefully and pur¬
posefully into Pembrooke’s eyes over her
shoulder. "There is something better here
than love, Tascala!”
Pembrooke, numb under the more-than-
natural force of the high priest’s hypnotic
eyes, could only stand helplessly with his
arms about Tascala. He felt her stiffen
in his embrace, saw her lips begin their
hellish writhing, while Ixmal whispered
abominations in her ear. He felt her icy
breath coming closer on his neck.
A groan burst from Pembrooke’s dry
throat, weighted with all the bitterness
of his disappointment and horror in that
moment. A tremor shook Tascala at the
sound. He saw her face turn upward,
slowly, jerkily, as if there were a weight
that bore upon her head.
Ixmal yelled a command into her ear
that Pembrooke did not understand, but
he felt Tascala’s panting breath upon his
throat. Then, as if whatever bond that
held her had been burst, her lips moved
swiftly toward him—and kissed him soft¬
ly, full upon the mouth.
From Ixmal came one fiendish howl of
frustration—choked in the middle, as if
415
his throat were suddenly full of dust.
And dust was Ixmal: so swiftly did he
shrink and shrivel and subside into a tiny
powdered heap at their feet that neither
Pembrooke nor Tascala saw him vanish.
In his arms, Tascala looked into Pem¬
brooke’s face with all the glory of a soul
set free shining in her eyes. Her lips
clung to his with an abandonment of
passion, and they were soft, and sweet—
and warm! Her body was close to his,
and it, too, was warm with the fire of love
and life.
One instant they stood, locked in the
embrace four centuries had denied; one
instant, while Tascala sobbed, "Beloved!”
Then she was gone.
Pembrooke was standing one moment
with Tascala held against him; in the
next, he looked stupidly and aghast at
the empty circle of his arms, within which
there was nothing but a few settling motes
of dust that fluttered softly downward
amidst the dying beams of the now un¬
veiled moon. The dawn wind that crept
in from across the desert stirred two lit¬
tle heaps of dust at his feet, sifting their
particles gently across the top of what
was once the great temple of Tapalapan.
Littered ornaments—a golden fillet, set
with one great emerald, a rough, bossel-
ated and jeweled bracelet—lay dully with
the dust.
"Tascala—Tascala!”
The cry was wrung in anguish from
Pembrooke, who stared unseeing at his
empty arms. He knew, now, that Ixmal
had been right, and Tascala, as well as
the priest, rested at last with the ashes
of what had been Tapalapan.
W earily, brokenly, Pembrooke stum¬
bled down the side of the ancient
mound. Midway down the precipitous
416 WEIRD TALES
slope, his ankle turned as the result of a
careless step. Falling headlong, his fore¬
head came in violent contact with the
corner of an outcropping piece of stone.
Limply, as if he had been a mere loose-
jointed puppet, Pembrooke rolled and
bounced to the bottom of the steep de¬
clivity, as dawn flared behind the distant
mountain tops.
His companions, Doctor Whitaker and
Greely (themselves strangely wan and
weak), found him when the morning sun
had climbed into the sky.
Pembrooke was one great mass of cuts
and bruises; there was an angry contused
wound upon his forehead, and his limbs
were bent in abnormal and grotesque
fashion. Doctor Whitaker dressed his
cuts and tended his bruises as well as
might be with the use of their first-aid
kit; but it was all too apparent that Pem¬
brooke was in dire need of attention that
could not be given him in camp. Accord¬
ingly they set out for Santa Rosalia.
When noon breathed its hot breath
upon the village, Pembrooke lay without
moving, in a quiet room of Father Sebas-
tiano’s quarters. The priest watched and
served, sharing his ministry with Greely
and Doctor Whitaker. At length he
shook his head.
"I am afraid, Senores,” he whispered,
"the doctor for whom we have sent to
Celayos will not arrive in time, and I
fear his skill would not suffice, even if he
were here already. See how still this poor
one lies, the vital spark so low he does
not even moan.”
The day wore wearily on; and sunset
came before the doctor from Celayos. The
fat village mayor stole into the room, to
inquire again about the Senor Pembrooke.
A breeze stirred, crept in from the desert.
Pembrooke, who had lain so still, with¬
out even a whimper passing the pale lips
from which the priest now and again
wiped the traces of a crimson trickle, sud¬
denly moved his head. He made as if to
extend his arms, though they responded
but feebly to his efforts. Father Sebas-
tiano bent over the bed, peering, and be¬
gan to pray. Pembrooke whispered clear¬
ly above the priest’s droning:
"I am coming—Tascala!” Then he was
still again, and there was the seal of final¬
ity upon his stillness, now. One spark
had died: or perhaps it but burned on,
brighter, elsewhere. . . .
"Look!” hoarsely directed the mestizo
mayor. His thick finger quivered, pointing
at the wall above the bed. There was a
faint shadow there, a shadow with the
seeming of a slender, girlish outline. . . .
"There is & little tree in the courtyard,
and the setting sun casts its shadow on the
wall.” Father Sebastiano’s voice was sharp¬
er than it need have been: "Don” Tomas
had made no comment upon the queer¬
ness of that shadow. The priest had
looked for himself.
"Look!” again "Don” Tomas whis¬
pered: "Another shadow joins the first!
Tascala has found her lover—the curse is
lifted!”
But the sun slipped suddenly away;
and whatever shadows there may have
been upon the wall, they seemed to have
melted into the dusk.
Outside, the breeze that had come
with sunset rustled softly through the fol¬
iage in the courtyard. The rotund mayor
of Santa Rosalia crossed himself, furtively
watching the others in the silent room.
From the strained look in Father Sebas¬
tiano’s eyes, from the odd way in which
the two norte americanos exchanged star¬
tled glances, "Don” Tomas knew that
they had, all of them, heard alike.
Through the open windows, it seemed
that the rustling in the leaves outside
made a low, glad whispering:
"Tascala! At last, my Love!"
It may not have been the breeze that
whispered.
W. T—8
 Uhe ^olf-Leader
By ALEXANDRE DUMAS

T The Story Thus Far

HIBAULT, a French shoemaker,

lived alone in a forest near Vil-
ment he found the stag tied inside his hut
when he went home that night.
But the stag was a mild surprize in con¬

lers-Cotterets on the estate of the trast to Thibault’s second visitor, a huge

Baron of Vez. A good-looking man in black wolf that appeared in the hut in
a very mysterious way. When the shoe¬
his late twenties, Thibault had seen just
enough of the world to make him discon¬ maker raised a hatchet with an idea of

tented with his own station in life. killing the wolf, he was dumfounded to
hear the beast speak. The strange crea¬
The Baron of Vez was an ardent
ture gave Thibault to understand that the
huntsman. Following a stag one day, his
Devil was of a mind to bargain and would
dog pack lost the scent near Thibault’s
grant the man’s desires in return for hairs
hut. Thibault sought to obtain the stag
from his head, one for the first wish, two
for himself, by poaching, but was found
for the second, four for the third and so
out, and escaped a severe whipping only
on, doubling the number for every wish
by the intervention of a girl, Agnelette.
granted. The wolf then gave Thibault a
The girl told Thibault quite frankly,
ring in exchange for one the shoemaker
after the Baron departed, that she wished
was wearing, and the unholy pact was
to marry, and Thibault engaged himself
complete.
to her.
Thibault’s ambition fired by the black
But Thibault’s rancor against the Bar¬
wolf’s promises, the shoemaker deter¬
on was so great that he was willing to go
mined to forget Agnelette and marry
to any length to get even with him. He
Madame Polet, the wealthy young widow
had carelessly called upon the Devil to
who owned the mill at Croyolles. But he
give the stag to him, and to his astonish-
found that Madame Polet was enamored
"This remarkable werewolf novel, by Alexandre of another, and in his rage he behaved so
Dumas, fils, is not included in the published collections
of Dumas’ works in English, and will therefore be badly that she ordered the servants to put
new to our leaders, except those who have had the
good fortune to read the story in the original French. him out. Thibault escaped up a steep
This story began in WKIKD TALES for August
W. T.—9 417
418 WEIRD TALES
hillside where the servants could not fol¬
low. "What can we do against a were¬
wolf?” they asked their mistress.
Going home through the forest, Thi-
bault was alarmed when a pack of wolves
surrounded him, but he soon discovered
that they were friendly. That night and
subsequent nights they formed a guard
around his hut, even hunting for deer
and bringing him venison to eat.
One lock of Thibault’s hair was now
entirely red, but his envy of the nobility
made him resolve to use his satanic power
to the utmost, even if all his hair should
be claimed by the Devil’s color.
Returning from one of his escapades,
guarded by his wolves, Thibault wit¬
nessed the wedding procession of his lost
love, Agnelette, who marries Engoule-
vent, one of the retainers of the Baron
of Vez. Maddened by jealousy, he drowns
his sorrow in drinking at an inn.
Returning to his cabin, he is nearly
run down by the Lord of Vauparfond,
and expresses the wish that he might
change places with the Lord of Vaupar¬
fond for twenty-four hours. No sooner
has he uttered the wish than it is granted.
Dragging into the hut his own body, into
which the soul of the Lord of Vaupar¬
fond has been temporarily placed, Thi¬
bault in the body and clothes of the no¬
bleman goes to keep an assignation with
the Countess of Mont-Gobert. He is
surprized by the Count and fatally wound¬
ed in a duel.
The twenty-four hours are up, and he
and the Lord of Vauparfond exchange
bodies just one minute before the Baron
expires. Thibault wakes up to find him¬
self in his cabin, while fierce flames are
beating about him. The populace has
set fire to his dwelling, and amid cries of
"Death to the werewolf!” he dashes
through the flames and escapes to join
his pack of wolves in the forest.
He informs the Countess of Mont-
Gobert who has killed her lover. To
avenge her lover’s death she stabs her
husband and then commits suicide.
Thibault meets Agnelette in the woods
and all his passion for her revives. She
refuses to go away with him, and in a
fit of anger he curses her and expresses
the wish that Agnelette’s husband shall
speedily die. Agnelette flees in terror
and Thibault watches her going, ex¬
claiming to himself, "Ah! now I am in¬
deed a lost and accursed soul!”
CHAPTER 22
Thibault’s Last Wish
rged in her flight by a hideous terror,
and anxious to reach the village
where she had left her husband with all
speed possible, Agnelette, for the very
reason that she was running so hastily, was
forced by her failing breath to pause at
intervals along the way. During these
short spaces of rest she endeavored to rea¬
son with herself, trying to convince her¬
self of the folly of attaching importance
to words which could have no power in
themselves, and which were dictated by
jealousy and hatred, words which had by
now been scattered to the winds, but not¬
withstanding all her mental arguments,
she had no sooner regained her breath
than she started off again at the same pre¬
cipitate pace, for she felt she should know
no peace until she had seen her husband
again.
Best part of her way led through the
forest, and near the wildest and most sol¬
itary enclosures, but she gave no thought
to the wolves, which were the terror of
every town and village within ten miles
round. Only one fear possessed her, that
of coming across her husband’s dead
body. More than once, as her foot struck
against a stone or a branch, her heart
stopped beating, and she felt as if her last
breath had been drawn, while a sharp cold
 THE WOLF-LEADER
seemed to enter her very vitals, her hair
stood on end and her face grew wet with
perspiration. At last, at the end of the
long path she had been traversing, arched
over by the trees, she saw ahead of her a
vista of open country lying bathed in the
soft silver light of the moon. As she
emerged from the gloom into the light, a
man, who had been concealed behind a
bush in the hollow lying between the for¬
est and the open country, sprang in front
of her and took her in his arms.
"Ah! ah!” he said, laughing, "and
where are you off to, Madame, at this hour
of the night, and at this pace too?” Ag-
nelette recognized her husband.
"Etienne! dear, dear Etienne,” cried the
young woman, throwing her arms round
his neck. "How thankful I am to see you
again, and to find you alive and well! Oh,
my God, I thank Thee!”
"What, did you think, you poor little
Agnelette,” said Engoulevent, "that Thi-
bault and his wolves had been making
their dinner of me?”
"Ah! do not even speak of Thibault,
Etienne! Let us fly, dear one, fly to where
there are houses!”
The young huntsman laughed again.
"Well, new then, you will make all the
gossips of Preciamont and Vez declare
that a husband is of no use at all, not even
to restore his wife’s courage.”
"You are right, Etienne; but although
I have just had the courage to come
through these great dreadful woods, now
that I have you with me and should feel
reassured, I tremble with fear, and yet I
know not why.”
"What has happened to you? Come,
tell me all about it,” said Etienne, giving
his wife a kiss. Then Agnelette told him
how she had been attacked by the wolf,
how Thibault had rescued her from its
claws, and what had passed between them
afterward. Engoulevent listened with the
greatest attention.
419
"Listen,” he said to Agnelette, "I am
going to take you home and shut you up
carefully with the grandmother, so that no
harm may come to you; and then I shall
ride over and tell my Lord of Vez where
Thibault has taken up his quarters.”
"Oh! no, no!” cried Agnelette, "you
would have to ride through the forest, and
there is no knowing what danger you
might run.”
"I will make a detour,” said Etienne.
"I can go round by Croyolles and Value
instead of crossing the forest.”
Agnelette sighed and shook her head,
but made no further resistance; she knew
that Engoulevent would not give in on
this matter, and she reserved her strength
to renew her entreaties when she was once
indoors.
And in truth, the young huntsman only
considered that he was doing his duty,
for a great battue had been arranged for
the next day in a part of the forest on the
farther side from that on which Agnelette
had met Thibault. Etienne, therefore,
was bound to go without delay and report
to his master the whereabouts of the wolf-
leader. There was not too much of the
night left for the work of re-arranging for
the morrow’s battue.
As they drew near Preciamont, Agnel¬
ette, who had not spoken for a while, de¬
cided that she had, during her silence,
amassed a sufficient number of reasons to
justify her in beginning her solicitations
afresh, which she did with even more ear¬
nestness than she had put into her former
arguments. She reminded Etienne that
Thibault, even though he might be a
werewolf, had, so far from hurting her,
actually saved her life; and that after all,
he had not abused his power when he had
her in it, but had allowed her to leave
him and rejoin her husband. And after
that, to betray where he was to his mortal
enemy, the Lord of Vez, was not perform¬
ing a duty, but committing an act of
420 WEIRD TALES
treachery; and Thibault, who would cer¬
tainly get wind of this treachery, would
never under similar circumstances show
mercy to any one again.
Agnelefcte became quite eloquent as she
pleaded Thibault’s cause. But, when
marrying Engoulevent, she had made no
more secret of her former engagement to
the shoemaker than she had of this last
interview with him, and however perfect
a confidence he had in his wife, Engoule¬
vent was nevertheless not unsusceptible to
jealousy. More than that, there existed
an old grudge between the two men, ever
since the day when Engoulevent had spied
out Thibault in his tree, and his boar-
spear in a neighboring bush. So he stood
his ground, and though listening to Ag-
nelette, continued to walk briskly toward
Preciamont.
And so arguing together, and each in¬
sisting that he or she was in the right,
they came to within a stone’s throw of the
first forest-fences. To protect themselves
as far as possible from Thibault’s sudden
and unexpected assaults, the peasants had
instituted patrol parties, who mounted
guard at night as in times of war. Eti¬
enne and Agnelette were so pre-occupied
with their discussion, that they did not
hear the call of "Who goes there?” from
the sentinel behind the hedge, and went
walking on in the direction of the vil¬
lage. The sentinel seeing something
moving in the darkness which to his pre¬
possessed imagination appeared to be a
monstrous form of some kind, and hear¬
ing no answer to his challenge, he pre¬
pared to shoot.
Looking up at that moment, the young
huntsman suddenly caught sight of the
sentinel, as the moonlight shone on the
barrel of his gun. Calling out "Friend,”
he threw himself in front of Agnelette,
flinging his arms round her, so as to make
a shield of his body. But at the same in¬
stant the gun went off, and the unfortu¬
nate Etienne, giving one last sigh, fell for¬
ward without a groan against the wife he
was clasping in his arms. The bullet had
pierced his heart.
W hen the people of Preciamont, on
hearing the gun shot, came run¬
ning up to the spot, they found Engoule¬
vent dead, and Agnelette lying uncon¬
scious beside her husband. They carried
her to her grandmother’s, but she only
came to her senses to fall into a state of
despair which bordered on delirium, and
which at last became almost madness.
She accused herself of her husband’s
death, called him by name, begged the in¬
visible spirits, which seemed to haunt her,
even in the short intervals of slumber
which her excited state of brain made pos¬
sible, to have mercy upon him. She called
Thibault’s name, and addressed such
heartbroken supplications to him that
those about her were moved to tears. By
degrees, in spite of the incoherence of her
words, the real facts became evident, and
it grew to be generally understood that
the wolf-leader was in some way account¬
able for the unhappy accident which had
caused poor Etienne’s death. The com¬
mon enemy was therefore accused of hav¬
ing cast a spell over the two unfortunate
young creatures, and the animosity felt
toward the former shoemaker became in¬
tensified.
In vain doctors were sent for from Vil-
lers-Cotterets and Ferte-Milon, Agnelette
became worse and worse; her strength was
rapidly failing; her voice, after the first
few days, grew feebler, her breath shorter,
although her delirium was as violent as
ever, and everything, even the silence on
the doctors’ part, led to the belief that
poor Agnelette would soon follow her
husband to the grave. The voice of the
old blind woman alone seemed to have
any power to allay the fever. When she
heard her grandmother speaking, she
 THE WOLF-LEADER
grew calmer, the haggard staring eyes
grew softer arid suffused with tears; she
would pass her hand over her forehead as
if to drive away some haunting thought,
and a sorrowful wandering smile would
pass across her lips.
One evening, toward night, her slum¬
ber seemed to be more agitated and dis¬
tressed than usual. The hut, feebly lit by
a little copper lamp, was in semi-dark¬
ness; the grandmother sat by the hearth,
with that immobility of countenance
under which peasants and savages hide
their strongest feelings. At the foot of
the bed on which Agnelette lay, so worn
and white that, had it not been for the
regular rise and fall of her bosom with
its troubled breathing, you might have
taken her for dead, knelt one of the
women, whom the Baron was paying to
attend upon the widow of his young
huntsman, engaged in telling her beads;
the other was silently spinning with her
distaff. All at once, the sick woman, who
for some minutes past had been shivering
at intervals, seemed to be fighting against
some horrible dream, and gave a piercing
cry of anguish. At that moment the door
burst open, a man seemingly encircled by
flames rushed into the room, leapt to Ag-
nelette’s bed, clasped the dying woman
in his arms, pressed his lips upon her fore¬
head, uttering cries of sorrow, then
rushed out and disappeared.
The apparition had come and gone so
quickly that it seemed almost like a hallu¬
cination, and as if Agnelette were en¬
deavoring to repulse some invisible object
as she cried out, "Take him away! take
him away!” But the two watchers had
seen the man and had recognized Thi-
bault, and there was a clamoring outside,
in the midst of which the name of Thi-
bault could be distinguished.
Soon the clamor came nearer to Agnel-
ette’s hut, and those who were uttering
the cries ere long appeared on the thresh¬
421
old; they were in pursuit of the wolf-
leader. Thibault had been seen prowling
in the neighborhood of the hut, and the
villagers, warned of this by their sentinels,
had armed thmeslves with pitchforks and
sticks preparatory to giving him chase.
Thibault, hearing of the hopeless condi¬
tion in which Agnelette was, had not been
able to resist his longing to see her once
again, and at the risk of what might hap¬
pen to him, he had passed through the
village, trusting to die rapidity of his
movements, had opened the door of the
hut and rushed in to see the dying woman.
The two women showed the peasants
the door by which Thibault had escaped,
and like a pack that has recovered the
scent they started afresh on his track with
renewed cries and threats. Thibault, it
need hardly be said, escaped from them
and disappeared in the forest.
Agnelette’s condition, after the terrible
shock given her by Thibault’s presence
and embrace, became so alarming that be¬
fore the night was over the priest was sent
for; she had evidently now but a few
hours longer to live and suffer. Toward
midnight the priest arrived, followed by
the sacristan carrying the cross, and the
choir-boys bearing the holy water. These
went and knelt at the foot of the bed,
while the priest took his place at the head
beside Agnelette. And now some myste¬
rious power seemed to re-animate the dy¬
ing woman. For a long time she spoke
in a low voice with the priest, and as the
poor child had no need of long prayers for
herself, it was certain that she must be
praying for another. And who was that
other? God, the priest, and Agnelette
alone knew.
CHAPTER 23
The Anniversary
A s soon as Thibault ceased to hear the
l furious cries of his pursuers behind
him, he slackened his pace, and the usual
422 WEIRD TALES
silence again reigning throughout the for¬
est, he paused and sat down on a heap of
stones. He was in such a troubled state of
mind that he did not recognize where he
was, until he began to notice that some of
the stones were blackened, as if they had
been licked by flames; they were the stones
of his own former hearth. Chance had
led him to the spot where a few months
previously his hut had stood.
The shoemaker evidently felt the bit¬
terness of the comparison between that
peaceful past and this terrible present, for
large tears rolled down his cheeks and fell
upon the cinders at his feet. He heard
midnight strike from the Oigny church
clock, then one after the other from the
other neighboring village towers. At this
moment the priest was listening to Agnel-
ette’s dying prayers.
"Cursed be the day!” cried Thibault,
"when I first wished for anything beyond
what God chooses to put within the
reach of a poor workman! Cursed be the
day when the black wolf gave me the
power to do evil, for the ill that I have
done, instead of adding to my happiness,
has destroyed it for ever!”
A loud laugh was heard behind Thi-
bault’s back.
He turned; there was the black wolf
himself, creeping noiselessly along, like
a dog coming to rejoin its master. The
wolf would have been invisible in the
gloom but for the flames shot forth from
his eyes, which illuminated the darkness;
he went round the hearth and sat down
facing the shoemaker.
"What is this?” he said. "Master Thi¬
bault not satisfied? It seems that Master
Thibault is difficult to please.”
"How can I feel satisfied?” said Thi¬
bault. "I, who since I first met you, have
known nothing but vain aspirations and
endless regrets? I wished for riches, and
here I am in despair at having lost the
humble roof of bracken under shelter of
which I could sleep in peace without
anxiety as to the morrow, without troub¬
ling myself about the rain or the wind
beating against the branches of the giant
oaks.
"I wished for position, and here I am,
stoned and hunted down by the lowest
peasants, whom formerly I despised. I
asked for love, and the only woman who
loved me and whom I loved became the
wife of another, and she is at this moment
cursing me as she lies dying, while I,
notwithstanding all the power you have
given me, can do nothing to help her!”
"Leave off loving anybody but yourself,
Thibault.”
"Oh! yes, laugh at me, do!”
"I am not laughing at you. But did
you not cast envious eyes on other peo¬
ple’s property before you had set eyes on
me?”
"Yes, for a wretched buck, of which
there are hundreds just as good browsing
in the forest!”
"You thought your wishes were going
to stop at the buck, Thibault; but wishes
lead on to one another, as the night to the
day, and the day to night. When you
wished for the buck, you also wished for
the silver dish on which it would be
served; the silver dish led you on to wish
for the servant who carries it and for the
carver who cuts up its contents. Ambi¬
tion is like the vault of heaven; it appears
to be bounded by the horizon, but it cov¬
ers the whole earth. You disdained Ag-
nelette’s innocence, and went after Ma¬
dame Poulet’s mill; if you had gained the
mill, you would immediately have wanted
the house of the Bailiff Magloire; and his
house would have had no further attrac¬
tion for you when once you had seen the
Castle of Mont-Gobert.
"You are one in your envious disposi¬
tion with the fallen Angel, your master
and mine; only, as you were not clever
enough to reap the benefit that might have
 THE WOIT-LEADER
accrued to you from your power of inflict¬
ing evil, it would perhaps have been more
to your interest to continue to lead an hon¬
est life.”
"Yes, indeed,” replied the shoemaker.
"I feel the truth of the proverb, 'Evil to
him who evil wishes.’ But,” he con¬
tinued, "can I not become an honest man
again?”
The wolf gave a mocking chuckle.
"My good fellow, the devil can drag a
man to hell,” he said, "by a single hair.
Have you ever counted how many of yours
now belong to him?”
"No.”
"I can not tell you that exactly either,
but 1 know how many you have which are
still your own. You have one left! You
see it is long past the time for repent¬
ance.”
"But if a man is lost when but one of
his hairs belongs to the devil,” said Thi-
bault, "why can not God likewise save a
man in virtue of a single hair?”
"Well, try if that is so!”
"And, besides, when I concluded that
unhappy bargain with you, I did not un¬
derstand that it was to be a compact of
this kind.”
"Oh, yes! I know all about the bad
faith of you men! Was it no compact
then to consent to give me your hairs, you
stupid fool? Since men invented baptism,
we do not know how to get hold of them,
and so, in return for any concessions we
make them, we are bound to insist on their
relinquishing to us some part of their
body on which we can lay hands. You
gave us the hairs of your head; they are
firmly rooted, as you have proved your¬
self and will not come away in our
grasp. . . . No, no, Thibault, you have
belonged to us ever since, standing on the
threshold of the door that was once there,
you cherished within you thoughts of de¬
ceit and violence.”
"And so,” cried Thibault passionately,
423
rising and stamping his foot, "and so 1
am lost as regards the next world without
having enjoyed the pleasures of this!”
"You can yet enjoy these.”
"And how, I pray?”
"By boldly following the path that you
have struck by chance, and resolutely de¬
termining on a course of conduct which
you have adopted as yet only in a half¬
hearted way; in short, by frankly owning
yourself to be one of us.”
"And how am I to do this?”
"Take my place.”
"And what then?”
"You will then acquire my power, and
you will have nothing left to wish for.”
"If your power is so great, if it can
give you all the riches that I long for, why
do you give it up?”
"Do not trouble yourself about me.
The master for whom I shall have won a
retainer will liberally reward me.”
"And if I take your place, shall I also
have to take your form?”
"Yes, in the night-time; by day you
will be a man again.”
"The nights are long, dark, full of
snares; I may be brought down by a bul¬
let from a keeper, or be caught in a trap,
and then good-bye riches, good-bye posi¬
tion and pleasure.”
"Not so; for this skin that covers me is
impenetrable by iron, lead or steel. As
long as it protects your body, you will be
not only invulnerable, but immortal; once
a year, like all werewolves, you will be¬
come a wolf again for four and twenty
hours, and during that interval you will
be in danger of death like any other ani¬
mal. I had just reached that dangerous
time a year ago today, when we first met.”
"Ah!” said Thibault, "that explains
why you feared my Lord Baron’s dogs.”
"When we have dealings with men, we
are forbidden to speak anything but the
truth, and the whole truth; it is for them
to accept or refuse.”
424 WEIRD TALES
"You have boasted to me of the power
that I should acquire; tell me, now, in
what that power will consist?”
"It will be such that even the most
powerful king will not be able to with¬
stand it, since his power is limited by the
human and the possible.”
"Shall I be rich?”
"So rich, that you will come in time to
despise riches, since, by the mere force of
your will, you will obtain not only what
men can only acquire with gold and silver,
but also all that superior beings get by
their conjurations.”
"Shall I be able to revenge myself on
my enemies?”
"You will have unlimited power over
everything which is connected with evil.”
"If I love a woman, will there again be
a possibility of my losing her?”
"As you will have dominion over all
your fellow creatures, you will be able to
do with them what you like.”
"There will be no power to enable them
to escape from the trammels of my will?”
"Nothing, except death, which is
stronger than all.”
"And I shall only run the risk of death
myself on one day out of the three hun¬
dred and sixty-five?”
"On one day only; during the remain¬
ing days nothing can harm you, neither
iron, lead, nor steel, neither water, nor
fire.”
"And there is no deceit, no trap to catch
me, in your words?”
"None, on my honor as a wolf!”
"Good,” said Thibault, "then let it be
so; a wolf for four and twenty hours, for
the rest of the time the monarch of cre¬
ation! What am I to do? I am ready.”
"Pick a holly-leaf, tear it in three pieces
with your teeth, and throw it away from
you, as far as you can.”
Thibault did as he was commanded.
Having torn the leaf in three pieces, he
scattered them on the air, and although
the night till then had been a peaceful
one, there was immediately heard a loud
peal of thunder, while a tempestuous
whirlwind arose, which caught up the
fragments and carried them whirling away
with it.
"And now, brother Thibault,” said the
wolf, "take my place, and good luck be
with you! As was my case just a year ago,
so you will have to become a wolf for
four and twenty hours; you must en¬
deavor to come out of the ordeal as hap¬
pily as I did, thanks to you, and then you
will see realized all that I have promised
you. Meanwhile I will pray the lord of
the cloven hoof that he will protect you
from the teeth of the Baron’s hounds;
for, by the devil himself, I take a gen¬
uine interest in you. Friend Thibault.”
And then it seemed to Thibault that he
saw the black wolf grow larger and taller,
that it stood up on its hind legs and final¬
ly walked away in the form of a man, who
made a sign to him with his hand as he
disappeared.
We say it seemed to him, for Thibault’s
ideas, for a second or two, became very
indistinct. A feeling of torpor passed
over him, paralyzing his power of
thought. When he came to himself, he
was alone. His limbs were imprisoned
in a new and unusual form; he had, in
short, become in every respect the coun¬
terpart of the black wolf that a few min¬
utes before had been speaking to him.
One single white hair on his head alone
shone in contrast to the remainder of the
somber-colored fur; this one white hair of
the wolf was the one black hair which had
remained to the man.
T hibault had scarcely had time to re¬
cover himself when he fancied he
heard a rustling among the bushes, and
the sound of a low, muffled bark. . . ,
He thought of the Baron and his hounds,
and trembled. Thus metamorphosed intoi
 THE WOLF-LEADER
the black wolf, he decided that he would
not do what his predecessor had done,
and wait till the dogs were upon him.
It was probably a bloodhound he had
heard, and he would get away before the
hounds were uncoupled. He made off,
striking straight ahead, as is the manner
of wolves, and it was a profound satisfac¬
tion to him to find that in his new form
he had tenfold his former strength and
elasticity of limb.
"By the devil and his horns!” the voice
of the Lord of Vez was now heard to say
to his new huntsman a few paces off,
"you hold the leash too slack, my lad; you
have let the bloodhound give tongue, and
we shall never head the wolf back now.”
"I was in fault, I do not deny it, my
lord; but as I saw it go by last evening
only a few yards from this spot, I never
guessed that it would take up its quarters
for the night in this part of the wood and
that it was so close to us as all that.”
"Are you sure it is the same one that
has got away from us so often?”
"May the bread I eat in your service
choke me, my lord, if it is not the same
blade wolf that we were chasing last year
when poor Marcotte was drowned.”
"I should like finely to put the dogs on
its track,” said the Baron, with a sigh.
"My lord has but to give the order, and
we will do so, but he will allow me to
observe that we have still two good hours
of darkness before us, time enough for
every horse we have to break its legs.”
"That may be, but if we wait for the
day, 1’Eveille, the fellow will have had
time to get ten leagues away.”
"Ten leagues at least,” said 1’Eveille
shaking his head.
"I have got this cursed black wolf on
my brain,” added the Baron, "and I have
such a longing to have its skin, that I feel
sure I shall catch an illness if I do not get
hold of it.”
"Well then, my lord, let us have the
425
dogs out without a moment’s loss of
time.”
"You are right, l’Eveille; go and fetch
the hounds.”
L’Eveille went back to his horse, which
he had tied to a tree outside the wood,
and went off at a gallop, and in ten min¬
utes’ time, which seemed like ten centu¬
ries to the Baron, he was back with the
whole hunting train. The hounds were
immediately uncoupled.
"Gently, gently, my lads!” said the
Lord of Vez, "you forget you are not
handling your old well-trained dogs; if
you get excited with these raw recruits,
they’ll merely kick up a devil of a row,
and be no more good than so many turn¬
spits; let ’em get warmed up by degrees.”
And, indeed, the dogs were no sooner
loose, than two or three got at once on to
the scent of the werewolf, and began to
give cry, whereupon the others joined
them. The whole pack started off on
Thibault’s track, at first quietly following
up the scent, and only giving cry at long
intervals, then more excitedly and of
more accord, until they had so thoroughly
imbibed the odor of the wolf ahead of
them, and the scent had become so strong,
that they tore along, baying furiously, and
with unparalleled eagerness in the direc¬
tion of the Yvors coppice.
"Well begun is half done!” cried the
Baron. "You look after the relays,
l’Eveille; I want them ready whenever
needed! I will encourage the dogs. . . .
And you be on the alert, you others,” he
added, addressing himself to the younger
keepers; "we have more than one defeat
to avenge, and if I lose this view halloo
through the fault of any one among you,
by the devil and his horns! he shall be the
dogs’ quarry in place of the wolf!”
After pronouncing these words of en¬
couragement, the Baron put his horse to
the gallop, and although it was still pitch-
dark and the ground was rough, he kept
426 WEIRD TALES
the animal going at top speed so as to
come up with the hounds, which could
be heard giving tongue in the lowlands
about Bourg-Fontaine.
CHAPTER 24
Hunting Down the Werewolf
T hibault had got well ahead of the
dogs, thanks to the precaution he had
taken of making good his escape at the
first note of the bloodhound. For some
time he heard no further sound of pur¬
suit; but, all at once, like distant thunder,
the baying of the hounds reached his ears,
and he began to feel some anxiety. He
had been trotting, but he now went on at
greater speed, and did not pause till he
had put a few more leagues between him¬
self and his enemies. Then he stood still
and took his bearings; he found himself
on the heights at Montaigu. He bent his
head and listened—the dogs still seemed
a long way off, somewhere near the Tillet
coppice.
It required a wolf’s ear to distinguish
them so far off. Thibault went down the
hill again, as if to meet the dogs; then,
leaving Erneville to the left, he leaped
into the little stream which rises there,
waded down its course as far as Grimau-
court, dashed into the woods of Lessart-
l’Abbesse, and finally gained the forest of
Compiegne. He was somewhat reassured
to find that, in spite of his three hours’
hard running, the steel-like muscles of his
wolf legs were not in the least fatigued.
He hesitated, however, to trust himself
in a forest which was not so familiar to
him as that of Villers-Cotterets.
After another dash of a mile or so, he
decided that by doubling boldly he would
be most likely to put the dogs off the
scent. He crossed at a gallop all the
stretch of plain between Pierrefond and
Mont-Gobert, took to the woods at the
Champ Meutard, came out again at Vau-
vaudrand, regained the stream by the San-
ceres timber floatage, and once more
found himself in the forest near Long-
Pont.
Unfortunately for him, just as he
reached the end of the Route du Pendu,
he came across another pack of twenty
dogs, which Monsieur de Montbreton’s
huntsmen was bringing up as a relay, for
the Baron had sent his neighbor news of
the chase. Instantly the hounds were un¬
coupled by the huntsmen as he caught
sight of the wolf; for seeing that the latter
kept its distance, he feared it would get
too far ahead if he waited for the others
to come up before loosing his dogs. And
now began the struggle between the
werewolf and the dogs in very earnest. It
was a wild chase, which the horses, in
spite of their skilled riders, had great dif¬
ficulty in following, a chase over plains,
through woods, across heaths, pursued at
a headlong pace.
As the hunt flew by, it appeared and
disappeared like a flash of lightning across
a cloud, leaving behind a whirlwind of
dust, and a sound of horns and cries which
echo had hardly time to repeat. It rushed
over hill and dale, through torrents and
bogs, and over precipices, as if horses and
dogs had been winged like Hippogriffs
and Chimeras. The Baron had come up
with his huntsmen, riding at their head,
and almost riding on the tails of his dogs,
his eye flashing, his nostrils dilated, ex¬
citing the pack with wild shouts and furi¬
ous blasts, digging his spurs into his
horse’s sides whenever an obstacle of any
kind caused it to hesitate for a single in¬
stant.
The black wolf, on his side, still held
on at the same rapid pace; although sorely
shaken at hearing the fresh pack in full
pursuit only a short way behind him just
as he had got back to the forest, he had
not lost an inch of ground. As he retained
 THE WOLF-LEADER
to the full all his human consciousness, it
seemed to him impossible, as he still ran
on, that he should not escape in safety
from this ordeal; he felt that it was not
possible for him to die before he had
taken vengeance for all the agony that
others made him suffer, before he had
known those pleasures that had been
promised him, above all—for at this crit¬
ical moment his thoughts kept on running
on this—before he had gained Agnel-
ette’s love.
At moments he was possessed by ter¬
ror, at others by anger. He thought at
times that he would turn and face this
yelling pack of dogs, and, forgetting his
present form, scatter them with stones and
blows. Then, an instant after, feeling
mad with rage, deafened by the death-
knell the hounds were ringing in his ears,
he fled, he leaped, he flew with the legs
of a deer, with the wings of an eagle.
But his efforts were in vain; he might
run, leap, almost fly, the sounds of death
still clung to him, and if for a moment
they became more distant, it was only to
hear them a moment after nearer and
more threatening still. But still the in¬
stinct of self-preservation did not fail
him; and still his strength was undimin¬
ished; only, if by ill luck, he were to come
across other relays, he felt that it might
give way. So he determined to take a
bold course so as to out-distance the dogs,
and to get back to his lairs, where he knew
his ground and hoped to evade the dogs.
He therefore doubled for the second
time. He first ran back to Puiseux, then
skirted past Viviers, regained the forest
of Compiegne, made a dash into the for¬
est of Largue, returned and crossed the
Aisne at Attichy, and finally got back to
the forest of Villers-Cotterets at the low¬
lands of Argent. He trusted in this way
to baffle the strategic plans of the Lord of
Vez, who had, no doubt, posted his dogs
at various likely points.
427
O nce back in his old quarters Thibault
breathed more freely. He was now
on the banks of the Ourcq between Nor-
roy and Trouennes, where the river runs
at the foot of deep rocks on either side;
he leaped up on to a sharp-pointed crag
overhanging the water, and from this high
vantage ground he sprang into the waves
below, then swam to a crevice at the base
of the rock from whidi he had leapt,
which was situated rather below the ordi¬
nary level of the water, and here, at the
back of this cave, he waited.
He had gained at least three miles upon
the dogs; and yet scarcely another ten
minutes had elapsed when the whole pack
arrived and stormed the crest of the rock.
Those who were leading, mad with ex¬
citement, did not see the gulf in front of
them, or else, like their quarry, they
thought they would leap safely into it;
for they plunged, and Thibault was
splashed, far back as he was hidden, by
the water that was scattered in every di¬
rection as they' fell into it one by one.
Less fortunate, however, and less vigor¬
ous than he was, they were unable to fight
against the current, and after vainly bat¬
tling with it, they were borne along out
of sight before they had even got scent of
the werewolf’s retreat. Overhead he
could hear the tramping of the horses’
feet, the baying of the dogs that were still
left, the cries of men, and above all these
sounds, dominating the other voices, that
of the Baron as he cursed and swore.
When the last dog had fallen into the
water, and been carried away like the
others, he saw, thanks to a bend in the
river, that the huntsmen were going down
it, and persuaded that the Baron, whom
he recognized at the head of his hunting-
train, would only do this with the inten¬
tion of coming up it again, he determined
not to wait for this, and left his hiding-
place. Now' swimming, now leaping
with agility from one rock to the other.
428 WEIRD TALES
at times wading through the water, he
went up the river to the end of the Crene
coppice.
Certain that he had now made a con¬
siderable advance on his enemies, he re¬
solved to get to one of the villages near
and run in and out among the houses,
feeling sure that they would not think of
coming after him there. He thought of
Preciamont; if any village was well known
to him, it was that; and then, at Precia¬
mont, he would be near Agnelette.
It was now six o’clock in the evening;
the hunt had lasted nearly fifteen hours,
and wolf, dogs and huntsmen had cov¬
ered fifty leagues at least. When, at last,
after circling round by Manereux and
Oigny, the black wolf reached the borders
of the heath by the lane of Ham, the sun
was already beginning to sink, and shed¬
ding a dazzling light over the flowery
plain; the little white and pink flowers
scented the breeze that played caressingly
around them; the grasshopper was singing
in its little house of moss, and the lark
was soaring up toward heaven, saluting
the eve with its song, as twelve hours be¬
fore it had saluted the mom.
The peaceful beauty of nature had a
strange effect on Thibault. It seemed
enigmatical to him that nature could be
so smiling and beautiful, while anguish
such as his was devouring his soul. He
saw the flowers and heard the insects and
the birds, and he compared the quiet joy
of this innocent world with the horrible
pangs he was enduring, and asked him¬
self, whether after all, notwithstanding
all the new promises that had been made
him by the devil’s envoy, he had acted
any more wisely in making this second
compact than he had in making the first.
He began to doubt whether he might not
find himself deceived in the one as he
had been in the other.
As he went along a little footpath near¬
ly hidden under the golden broom, he
suddenly remembered that it was by this
very path that he had taken Agnelette
home on the first day of their acquaint¬
ance; the day, when inspired by his good
angel, he had asked her to be his wife.
The thought that, thanks to this new com¬
pact, he might be able to recover Agnel-
ette’s love, revived his spirits, which had
been saddened and depressed by the sight
of the universal happiness around him.
He heard the church bells at Preciamont
ringing in the valley below; its solemn,
monotonous tones recalled the thought of
his fellow men to the black wolf, and of
all he had to fear from them. So he ran
boldly on, across the fields, to the village,
where he hoped to find a refuge in some
empty building.
As he was skirting the little stone wall
of the village cemetery, he heard a sound
of voices, approaching along the road he
was in. He could not fail to meet who¬
ever they might be who were coming to¬
ward him, if he himself went on; it was
not safe to turn back, as he would have to
cross some rising ground whence he
might easily be seen; so there was nothing
left for it but to jump over the wall of the
cemetery, and with a bound he was on the
other side. This graveyard as usual ad¬
joined the church; it was uncared for, and
overgrown with tall grass, while brambles
and thorns grew rankly in places.
The wolf made for the thickest of these
bramble bushes; he found a sort of ruined
vault, whence he could look out without
being seen, and he crept under the
branches and hid himself inside. A few
yards away from him was a newly dug
grave; within the church could be heard
the chanting of the priests, the more dis¬
tinctly that the vault must at one time
have communicated by a passage with the
crypt. Presently the chanting ceased; and
the black wolf, who did not feel quite at
ease in the neighborhood of a church, and
(Please turn to page 430)
 Coming Next Month
I HAD, it transpired, hit upon Mrs. Lorriquer’s bedroom, and there plain before me—
it was a light, clear night, and all the eight windows stood open to the starlight and
what was left of a waning moon—lay Mrs. Lorriqueron the stub-posted mahogany four-
poster with its tester and valance. The mosquito-net was not let down, and Mrs. Lorri-
quer, like most people in our climate, was covered, as she lay in her bed, only with a sheet.
I could, therefore, see her quite plainly, in an excellent light.
But—that was not all that I saw.
For, beside the bed, quite close in fact, stood Simon Legrand, facing me, the clothes, the
closely buttoned surtout, the spreading, flaring de Joinvilie scarf, fastened with the amazing
brooch, the pock-marked, ill-natured face, the thick, black hair, the typical croupier mus¬
tache, the truculent expression; Simon Legrand, to the life.
And between him as he stood there, glaring truculently at me, intruding upon his abom¬
inable manifestation, and the body of Mrs. Lorriquer, as I glared back at this incredible con¬
figuration, there stretched, and wavered, and seemed to flow, toward him and from the body
of Mrs. Lorriquer, a whitish, tenuous stream of some milky-looking material—like a waved
sheet, like a great mass of opaque soap-bubbles, like those pouring grains of attenuated
plasma described in Dracula; when in the dreadful castle in Transylvania, John Harker
stood confronted with the materialization of that arch-fiend’s myrmidons.
All these comparisons rushed through my mind, and, finally, the well-remembered de¬
scriptions of what takes place in the "materialization” of a "control” at a mediumistic seance
when material from the medium floats toward and into the growing incorporation of the
manifestation, building up the body through which the control expresses itself.
All this, I say, rushed through my mind with the speed of thought, and recorded itself
so that I can easily remember die sequence of these ideas. But, confronted with this utter¬
ly unexpected affair, what I did, in actuality, was to pause, transfixed with the strange¬
ness, and to mutter, "My God!” . . .
This strange story of a powerful phantom, of possession by an entity long dead, will
be printed complete in our next issue:

MRS. LORRIQUER
By HENRY S. WHITEHEAD
—ALSO—
THE RED WITCH IN THE VAULT
By Nictzin Dyalhis By H. P. Lovecraft
A shuddery graveyard tale by the author of "Thel
A tale of atavism, a thrill-story which links the Rats in the Walls.”
past and present—a fascinating weird tale about
a red-headed woman whose vivid personality CONJURE BAG
will long remain in your taemory. By Kadra Maysi
An eery story of the Black Belt of South Car¬
THE EARTH-BRAIN
olina, a tale of voodoo and death.
By Edmond Hamilton
THE VRYKOLAKAS
A thrilling story by a master of science-fiction, By Robert C. Sandison
about the vast creature on whose body we live.
A thrilling tale of a gangster in a Western city
THE WITCH-DOCTOR —a vampire story of unusual power.
By Lieutenant Edgar Gardiner Also another thrilling installment of
A grim and striking story of how a white man THE DEVIL’S BRIDE
ran afoul of African vodu-magic. By Seabury Quinn

April WEIRD TALES Out March 1

429
430 WEIRD TALES
(Continued from page 428)
thought that the road must now be clear,
decided that it was time to start off again
and to find a safer retreat than the one he
had fled to in his haste.
But he had scarcely got his nose out¬
side the bramble bush when the gate of
the cemetery opened, and he quickly re¬
treated again to his hole, in great trepida¬
tion as to who might now be approaching.
The first person he saw was a child dressed
in a white alb and carrying a vessel of
holy water; he was followed by a man in
a surplice, bearing a silver cross, and
after the latter came a priest, chanting the
psalms for the dead.
Behind these were four peasants carry¬
ing a bier covered with a white pall over
which were scattered green branches and
flowers, and beneath the sheet could be
seen the outline of a coffin; a few vil¬
lagers from Preciamont wound up this
little procession. Although there was
nothing unusual in such a sight as this,
seeing that he was in a cemetery, and
that the newly dug grave must have pre¬
pared him for it, Thibault, nevertheless,
felt strangely moved as he looked on. Al¬
though the slightest movement might be¬
tray his presence and bring destruction
upon him, he anxiously watched every
detail of the ceremony.
T he priest having blessed the newly
made grave, the peasants laid down
their burden on an adjoining hillock. It
is the custom in our country when a young
girl, or young married woman, dies in the
fullness of her youth and beauty, to carry
her to the graveyard in an open coffin,
with only a pall over her, so that her
friends may bid her a last farewell, her
relations give her a last kiss. Then the
coffin is nailed down, and all is over. An
old woman, led by some kind hand, for
she was apparently blind, went up to the
coffin to give the dead one a last kiss; the
peasants lifted the pall from the still face,
and there lay Agnelette.
A low groan escaped from Thibault’s
agonized breast, and mingled with the
tears and sobs of those present. Agnel¬
ette, as she lay there so pale in death,
wrapped in an ineffable calm, appeared
more beautiful than when in life, beneath
her wreath of forget-me-nots and daisies.
As Thibault looked upon the poor dead
girl, his heart seemed suddenly to melt
within him. It was he, as he had truly
realized, who had really killed her, and he
experienced a genuine and overpowering
sorrow, the more poignant since for the
first time for many long months he forgot
to think of himself, and thought only of
the dead woman, now lost to him for
ever.
As he heard the blows of the hammer
knocking the nails into the coffin, as he
heard the earth and stones being shovelled
into the grave and falling with a dull thud
on to the body of the only woman he had
ever loved, a feeling of giddiness came
over him. The hard stones he thought
must be bruising Agnelette’s tender flesh,
so fresh and sweet but a few days ago,
and only yesterday still throbbing with
life, and he made a movement as if to
rush out on the assailants and snatch away
the body, which dead, must surely belong
to him, since, living, it had belonged to
another.
But the grief of the man overcame this
instinct of the wild beast at bay; a shud¬
der passed through the body hidden be¬
neath its wolf skin; tears fell from the
fierce blood-red eyes, and the unhappy
man cried out: "O God! take my life, I
give it gladly, if only by my death I may
give back life to her whom I have killed!”
The words were followed by such an
appalling howl, that all who were in the
cemetery fled, and the place was left utter¬
ly deserted. Almost at the same moment,
(Please turn to page 432)
 WEIRD TALES 431

BACK ISSUES
••
For complete list and prices write to Weird Tales,
840 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill.

Do You Read the Companion Magazine

to WEIRD TALES?

We know you will be enthusiastic over

ORIENTAL STORIES
BUY A COPY TODAY!
432 WEIRD TALES
NEXT MONTH
The Red Witch
By NICTZIN DYALHIS
T hroughout all history red-headed
women, from Helen of Troy to
Aimee Semple McPherson, have im¬
pressed their personalities upon their
times. Here is a story of a red-headed
woman, beautiful as day and fascinat¬
ing as life itself, whose personality was
so strong that it caused a great war-
chief to pursue her down the centu¬
ries.
W ritten by the author of "When
the Green Star Waned,” this
story has all the thrill and vivid action
that have made his other tales so strik¬
ing. It is a tale of atavism, linking the
far-off time when the Red Witch’s
beauty set the head men of her tribe at
loggerheads, with the present day,
when the weird battle was resumed.
You can not afford to miss this story,
which will be printed complete in the
April issue of
WEIRD TALES
On sale March 1st
To avoid missing your copy, clip and mail this
coupon today for SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION
OFFER.
citr- -State.
(Continued from page 430)
the hounds, having recovered the scent,
came leaping in over the wall, followed
by the Baron, streaming with sweat as he
rode his horse, which was covered with
foam and blood. The dogs made straight
for the bramble bush, and began worry¬
ing something hidden there.
"Halloo! halloo! halloo!” cried the
Lord of Vez, in a voice of thunder, as he
leapt from his horse, not caring if there
was any one or not to look after it; and
drawing out his hunting-knife, he dashed
toward the vault, forcing his way through
the hounds. He found them fighting over
a fresh and bleeding wolfskin, but the
body had disappeared.
There was no mistake as to its being the
skin of the werewolf that they had been
hunting; for with the exception of one
white hair, it was entirely blade.
What had become of the body? No
one ever knew. Only as from this time
forth Thibault was never seen again, it
was generally believed that the former
sabot-maker and no other was the were¬
wolf.
Furthermore, as the skin had been
found without the body, and as from the
spot where it was found a peasant re¬
ported to have heard some one speak the
words: "O God! take my life! I give it
gladly, if only by my death I may give
back life to her whom I have killed,” the
priest declared openly that Thibault, by
reason of his sacrifice and repentance, had
been saved!
And what added to the consistency of
belief in this tradition was, that every
year on the anniversary of Agnelette's
death, up to the time when the monas¬
teries were all abolished at the Revolution,
a monk from the Abbey of the Premon-
stratensians at Bourg-Fontaine, which
stands half a league from Preciamont, was
seen to come and pray beside her grave.
[THE END ]
Classics of Weird Literature
Autographed by the Author

The Wind That Tramps the World

The Purple Sea

ACCLAIMED BT CRITICS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

New York Times: "Fanciful, touched by the super¬ Daily Argus Leader, Sioux Balls, S. D.: "This is a
natural, exotic in thought and coloring. Flowers, poems, collection to be read, laid down and read again.”
music and jade are interwoven with their themes and Wilmington Every Evening, Wilmington, Del.: "De¬
the effect is often both quaint and charming.” serves a place among one’s favorite books.”
The China Weekly Review, Shanghai, China: "Reveals Radio Station KDKA, Pittsburgh: "For those who are
a true sense of gentleness, the heart of a dreamer, a interested in Chinese literature and traditions, we
deep sense of rhythm and beauty. He sees China and believe this book will find a cordial welcome. A very
the Chinese through misty, naive, sometimes philo¬ beautiful book.”
sophic eyes.” The Globe, Toronto, Ont.: "Dealing with curious
phases of Chinese life, they are imaginative, colorful
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Honolulu, Hawaii: "They are and replete with poetry. For the first of these qualities
strange and glowing tales of an unearthly beauty. Their they might be likened to some of the creations of Edgar
scenes are laid in China but they might be anywhere. Allan Poe, but even the weirdest of them possess a
They are essentially a part of the history of those lost tenderness to which Poe was a stranger.”
lands where Dunsany’s heroes live and die magnificently Arizona Republican, Phoenix, Ariz.: "It is not often
and where Walter de la Mare’s dark travelers knock that such a book, as deserving of praise and as full of
vainly at mysterious moonlit doors.” real literary merit as "The Wind That Tramps the
Ohio State Journal, Columbus, Ohio: "There is some World,” comes our way. This sounds like effusiveness,
weirdness here, some mystery and some tender passages, but it isn’t. It’s merely giving credit for a real literary
enough of each to make a superlative ensemble that achievement. . . . They are masterpieces of a rich
won for this author a secure place in the field of Far imagination, deep and gripping in their beauty and
East fiction.” romance.”

SPECIAL AUTOGRAP [ED FIRST EDITIONS

Here are some real gems of literature. Poetic and fanci¬
ful Chinese stories with a real thrill to them. These are Weird Tales, Book Dept. F. O.
stories that deserve to live forever. Their ethereal sweet¬ 840 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill.
ness will grip you. Both books are special first editions Enclosed find $_Please send me an auto¬
autographed by the author. These books are very artis¬ graphed first edition of—
tically bound and would make an excellent gift to a □ "The Wind That Tramps the World”
friend or a valuable addition to your own library. □ "The Purple Sea”
Remember, first edition copies grow more valuable with Name__.
the years and when autographed become doubly valu¬ Address.
able. Order today. Price $1.50 each postpaid. City_
 Astonishing Electrical Invention
Protects Yom Car from Thieves
... Automatically/
there!” “It pimply can’t be true.” A running fire of coi
meant like this breaks out whenever and wherever this n<
invention is exhibited. And why not ? When
no one ever heard of such a startling, uncanny
device before,! In fact few people would even
dare to dream there could be such a thing! So
this, men, is something really NEW, something
to grip the imagination of everyone, something
that sells to every autoist on sheer novelty
alone. Distributors, “star” salesmen, every
man vWho wants to double and triple his present
income shouldnote carefully the following facts.
The Secret Of X Theft-Proof Car

Automatic

DEVIL DOG
rest" Electric clirp”,
ept. R-660, Pukwana, So. Dakota.
ush details of your big 5-day test offer and big profits I

^proteethia ZiZZ